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Centennial Anniversary 



TOWN OF COHASSET, 



May 7, 1870. 



ORATION BY Hon. THOMAS RUSSELL. 



SPEECHES BY GOV. CLz^FLlN, HIRAM REVELS, 

LORING LOTHROP, SOLOMON LINCOLN, 

GEORGE B. LORING, AND OTHERS. 



Boston: 

WRIGHT & POTTER, PRINTERS, 79 MILK STREET. 

1870. 



Centennial A 



ENTENNIAL /IlNNIVERSARY 



TOWN OF COHASSET 



May 7, 1870. 



ORATION BY Hon. THOMAS RUSSELL. 'A 13- V 



SPEECHES BY GOV. CLAFLIN, HIRAM REVELS, 

LORING LOTHROP, SOLOMON LINCOLN, 

GEORGE B. LORING, AND OTHERS. 



Boston: 

WRIGHT & POTTER, PRINTERS, 79 MILK STREET. 

1870. 



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COMMITTEE OF ARRANGEMENTS. 



J. Q. A. LOTHROP. 
MAETIN LINCOLN. 
LOUIS N. LINCOLN. 
A. H. TOWER, Je. 
ADNA BATES. 
LORING BATES. 
LEVI N. BATES. 



SOLOMON J. BEAL. 
ZEN AS D. LINCOLN. 
AARON PRATT. 
ZACCHEUS RICH. 
EDWARD E. TOWER. 
THOaiAS M. SMITH. 
J. P. T. PERCIVAL. 



CHARLES A. COUSENS. 



J 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 



The One Hundredth Anniversary of the Organization of 
the Town of Coh asset took place, in accordance with pre- 
vious announcement, on Saturday, May 7. The weather 
was not what we call pleasant, although no rain fell until 
after four o'clock, P. M. 

The dwellings generally were liberally and tastefully 
decorated. The occasion was one of more than ordinary 
interest to Cohasset people. The residents of the neighbor- 
ing towns also participated in this enthusiasm to some 
extent, — as did many others who dweU in more remote 
localities. 

The programme of the day commenced with the ringing 
of bells, and the firing of cannon at sunrise ; and this was 
continued at noon and sunset. 

At seven o'clock a concert was given on the Common by 
the Atlantic Musical Association. 

The Governor aYid other State officials and distinguished 
guests arrived in an extra train at ten o'clock. A procession 
was then formed, as follows : — 



4 Town of Coliasset. 

ORDER OF PROCESSION. 

Aid, Chief Marshal, Aid, 

L. P. Gushing. William B. Johnson. J. M. Pieper. 

Atlantic Musical Association. 

Military escort, consisting of a company of returned veterans in 
uniform, under the ccvmmand of Capt. John W. Tower. 

President of the Day, Governor and Staff, Orator, and other invited 
guests in carriages. 

Carriage, with the following ladies : Lydia Bates, aged 90 years ; 

Hannah Stoddard, aged 89 years ; Lucy Nichols, aged 85 

years ; Lydia Pratt, aged 84 years. 

Selectmen of Hiugham, Scituate, and Cohasset, in carriage. 

Committee of Arrangements in carriage. 

Citizens and others on foot. 

Children of the Public Schools, consisting of about two hundred and 
fifty in number, with small flags and bouquets. 

Private carriages. 

The two field-pieces which were used in firing tlie salutes 
upon the Common, and the gunners, joined in the line. 
One of the three large carriages was also filled with young 
Misses, each bearing a small flag, representing the States of 
the Union. 

On each side of the barouche containing Governors Claf- 
LiN, of Massachusetts, and Steaens, of New Hampshire, 
Judge EussELL, the Orator of the day, and J. Q. A. Loth- 
bop, Esq., the President of the day, were the following 
Assistant-Marshals : — 

On the left. On the right, 

A. H. Tower, Jr., Col. Hawkes Fearing, 

Frederick Nickerson, Capt. John Stephenson, 

M. B. Stetson, Henry Stephenson, 

N. H. Warren, George Lincoln, 

Of Cohasset. Of Hingham. 



Centennial Anniversary. 5 

Assistant-Marshal J. L. Battles was detailed for services 
at the church. 

Among the novelties in the procession was a boat on 
wheels, manned by sailor-dressed boys, called the "Relief," 
and a wagon containing representative women of the past, 
wearing immense bonnets and calashes. A spinning-wheel 
was kept in motion in this wagon, which reminded us of the 
days when our grandmothers spun and wove their own cloth. 
A piano and a sewing machine were also exercised to repre- 
sent the pursuits of the present day. 

A lady and gentleman riding together upon the back of 
one horse — representing the ancient mode of riding on a 
pillion — was another noticeable feature in the column. 

The procession moved through South Main street to the 
bridge. It then countermarched, passing through Summer 
and Elm streets to North Main street, Main street, and 
through Winter and Green streets, to the old meeting- 
house. 

Exercises at the Church. 
The procession reached the church shortly after twelve 
o'clock, and the edifice was soon filled to overflowing, the 
galleries being occupied almost exclusively by ladies. The 
clmrch was tastefully decorated for the occasion with flags 
and other memorials and devices. Over the clock, in the 
front gallery, were the original and present names, " Cono- 
HASSETT " and " Cohasset." On each side of the pulpit were 
floral displays. Flags were very prettily arranged in the 
centre of the platform in front of the pulpit, and also around 
the galleries. On this |)latform were seated William B. 
Johnson, Esq., Chief Marshal, J. Q. A. Lothrop, Esq., Rev. 



6 Town of CoJiasset. 

Messrs. Osgood, Fitts and Smith, and Hon. Thomas Russell, 
orator of the day. 

The exercises opened with a voluntary on the organ, 
which was followed by an anthem. 

The Chief Marshal then said : — 

Strangers and Fellow- Citizens, — ^Permit me to introduce 
to you our President of the Day, Mr. J. Q. A. Lotheop. 



ADDRESS OF MK. LOTHROP. 

3fi\ Marshal, — I will not say that this is an unexpected 
honor, for such is not the fact ; but I thank you, and through 
you the Committee of Arrangements, for the honor conferred 
upon me in appointing me to preside over the dehberations of 
the day. I will endeavor faithfully to perform the duties. One 
himdred years ago to-day, (Mr. Lothrop continued, turning 
toward the audience,) our ancestors assembled in this church, 
under an act of incoi-jioration, to elect the first ofiicers, pass the 
first votes, appropriate money to i)ay the necessary expenses, 
and to put in working order all matters pei'taining to the then 
new town of Cohasset, and what is considered as a singular co- 
incidence, and may not be improper for me to mention, is that 
two out of the three selectmen then elected were named Lin- 
coln, and that two of the jaresent selectmen bear the same 
name, descendants and good representatives of the former. 
The first were noble men and patriots, good specimens of the 
citizens of their time ; the j^resent ones we believe are able 
men, and capable of following in their footsteps — one of them, 
the elder, having held all the offices in the gift of the town, and 
now serving for the twentieth time as one of the selectmen. As 
the time apjiroached when the one hundi-ed years of our exist- 
ence as a town would expire, it seemed fitting to the citizens 
that some appropriate notice should be taken of the same, and 
accordingly a town meeting was called last December, a Com- 
mittee of Arrangements, consisting of fourteen, chosen to take 
the whole matter in charge, and to prepare for such a celebra- 
tion as they might deem necessary. That committee met, chose 



Centennial Anniversary. 7 

its officers, appointed sub-committees, and, having held numer- 
ous meetings, engaged an orator, appointed a chief marshal, and 
made all the preparations in order to fitly celebrate this day. 
And they believe the arrangements have been so far i)erfected 
that there can be no serious obstacle to a good and social gath- 
ering. And I, for and in behalf of the Committee of Arrange- 
ments, and of the citizens of the town, extend to your Excel- 
lency the Governor of Massachusetts, to your Excellency the 
Governor of New Hampshire, to the orator, to all Government 
and State officials, strangers, former citizens, and descendants of 
citizens and all others who have honored us with their presence, 
a most cordial and hearty welcome. It gives us pleasure to 
welcome you among us. We are happy to entertain you. We 
feel that you may have made some sacrifices to come here, but 
the joy your presence gives us we hope will in part repay you 
for your trouble. We feel honored by your coming, and we 
hope you may derive some benefit from your visit. This is an 
event in the history of the town which will not be forgotten by 
any one of its present inhabitants, and I have no doubt it will 
be published and handed down and mentioned at the two hj^in- 
dredth anniversaiy of its incorporation. When you depart 
fi'om us at the close of this celebration, we hope you will leave 
with the impression that we are an industrious, happy, law- 
abiding and order-loving people, fit to take high rank with the 
towns of the good old Commonwealth of Massachusetts. (Ap- 
l^lause.) 

EEADIXG OF THE SCRIPTURES. 

Rev. Calvin R. Fitts, of Cohasset, read selections from 
the Scriptures, as follows : — 

[Joshua, iv : 1-9 ; 19-24.] 

And it came to pass, when all the people were clean passed 
over Jordan, that the Lord spake unto Joshua, saying. 

Take you twelve men out of the people, out of every tribe a 
man. 

And command ye them, saying. Take you hence out of the 
midst of Jordan, out of the place where the priests' feet stood 



8 Town of Cohasset. 

firm, twelve stones, and ye shall cany tliem over with you, and 
leave them in the lodging place, where ye shall lodge this night. 

Then Joshna called the twelve men, whom he had prepared 
of the children of Israel, out of every tribe a man : 

And Joshua said unto them. Pass over before the ark of the 
Lord your God into the midst of Jordan, and take you u^) every 
man of you a stone upon his shoulder, according unto the num- 
ber of the tribes of the children of Israel : 

That this may be a sign among you, that when your children 
ask their fathers in time to come, saying. What mean ye -by 
these stones ? 

Then ye shall answer them. That the waters of Jordan were 
cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord ; when it 
passed over Jordan, the waters of Jordan were cut off: and 
these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel 
forever. 

And the children of Israel did so as Joshua commanded, and 
took up twelve stones out of the midst of Jordan, as the Lord 
spake unto Joshua, according to the number of the tribes of the 
children of Israel, and carried them over with them unto the 
place where they lodged, and laid them down there. 

And Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of Jordan, in 
the place where the feet of the priests which bare the ark of the 
covenant stood : and they are there unto this day. 

And the 2:)eople came up out of Jordan on the tenth day of 
the first month, and encamped in Gilgal, in the east border of 
Jericho. 

And those twelve stones, which they took out of Jordan, did 
Joshua pitch in Gilgal. 

And he spake unto the children of Israel, saying. When your 
children shall ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What 
mean these stones ? 

Then ye shall let your children know, saying, Israel came 
over this Jordan on dry land. 

For the Lord your God dried up the waters of Jordan fi'om 
before you, until ye were passed over, as the Lord your God did 
to the Red Sea, which he dried up fi'om before us, until we were 
gone over : 



Centennial Anniversary. 9 

That all the people of the earth might know the hand of tlie 
Lord, that it is mighty : that ye might fear the Lord your God 
forever. 

[lOSth Ps. : 1, 15.] 

Oh give thanks unto the Lord ; call upon his name : make 
known his deeds aniong the people. 

Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him : talk ye of all his won- 
drous works. 

Glory ye in his holy name : let the heart of them rejoice that 
seek the Lord. 

Seek the Lord, and his strength : seek his face evermore. 

Remember his marvellous Avorks that he hath done ; his won- 
ders, and the judgments of his mouth ; 

O ye seed of Abraham his servant, ye children of Jacob his 
chosen. 

He is the Lord our God : his judgments are in all the earth. 

He hath remembered his covenant forever, the word which he 
commanded to a thousand generations. 

Which covenant he made with Abraham, and his oath unto 
Isaac ; 

And confirmed the* same unto Jacob for a law, and to Isi*ael 
for an everlasting covenant ; 

Saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, the lot of 
your inheritance : 

When they were but a few men in number ; yea, very few, 
and strangers in it. 

When they went from one nation to another, fi-om one king- 
dom to another people ; 

He suffered no man to do them wrong : yea, he reproved 
kings for their sakes ; 

Saying, Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no 
harm. 

[135th Ps.: 1-5; 19-21.] 
Praise ye the Lord. Praise ye the name of the Lord ; praise 
him, O ye servants of the Lord. 

Ye that stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the 
house of oiu- God, 

Praise the Lord ; for the Lord is good sing praises unto his 
name ; for it is pleasant. 
2 



10 Toion of Cohasset. 

For the Lord hath chosen Jacob unto himself, and Israel for 
his peculiar treasure. 

For I know that the Lord is great, and that our Lord is above 
all gods. 

Bless thfe Lord, O house of Israel : bless the Lord, O house of 
Aaron : 

Bless the Lord, O house of Levi : ye that fear the Lord, bless 
the Lord. 

Blessed be the Lord out of Zion, which dwelleth at Jerusalem. 
Praise ye the Lord. 

PRATER BY REV. JOSEPH OSGOOD. 

Oh, thou infinite and eternal God, our fathers' God and our 
God, we would ask thy blessing ui^on us now. "We have as- 
sembled to commemorate the inauguration of the civil organ- 
ization of our town, and we would ask thy blessing on these 
rejoicings ; we would ask thy blessing on these solemnities ; 
we would ask thy blessing on all the hallowed memories that 
rise in our hearts ; and we would ask thy blessing on all those 
who would seek to give expression to our thought, our feeling, 
our gratitude, this day. 

We thank thee, heavenly Father, for the organization of this 
town, one hundred years ago, and for all the precious privileges 
that have been secured by that organization, and for the civil 
order and harmony that have resulted. We thank Thee for the 
support of our institutions of religion, by which the Christian 
faith and hope and love of the jjeople have been cherished, and 
in which they have found expression. We thank Thee for our 
institutions of learning, in which the young have been educated 
in heart and in intellect, and have been fitted to become useful 
citizens and members of the community. We thank Thee for all 
the noble sons and daughters who have been born in this town, 
who have lived and labored within its borders, or who have gone 
forth to discharge the various offices for which they were fitted in 
other towns and other lands. We thank Thee for those who have 
gone forth to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, thy Son. We 
thank Thee for those Avho have gone forth as beloved physicians, 
to work in another field of the Master's service. We thank 
Thee for those who have gone forth as leaders in commerce, who 



Centennial Anniversary. 11 

have done business on the great waters, and have helped to 
carry the blessings of commercial intercourse and modern civi- 
lization round the world. We thank Thee for all who have 
labored with their hands or with their hearts, for all who have 
shown their faithfulness to Thee and to duty, in whatever posi- 
tion thou hast placed them, whether engaged in cultivating the 
soil, in ploughing the deep, in mechanical occupations, or in 
trade and commerce. And we would thank thee, heavenly 
Father, for the order and hai-raony that have characterized the 
proceedings of this town. We thank Thee for the Avarm hearts 
of the inhabitants, who have been ready to rescue and to re- 
ceive to their homes the shipwrecked mariners who have been 
cast on our shores. We thank Thee for those who went forth 
in the early wars to defend the rights of their country and 
to redeem the land from oppression ; and we thank Thee for 
those who, in the later struggles of our common country, have 
shown their patriotism, their self-sacrifice, their willingness to 
do service, and to shed their blood in defence of their common 
country. And especially at this time would we remember 
those who have borne arms in the late war, and who are here 
with us. We would remember those who are absent from us, 
and especially him who was a noble leader of our forces in our 
great struggle, and who received a severe wound in our cause. 
And we would remember those brave young men whose forms 
repose in distant parts of our country, or which were brought 
to their home for burial, who have died so nobly in defence of 
all that was most precious to us. 

And while we thank Thee for all these blessings, while we thank 
thee for our sons and our daughters, while we thank Thee for all 
the prosperity with which thou hast favored us, we would sup- 
plicate a continuance of thy favors, and pray Thee to enable us, 
in the future, to be more true, more devoted, more faithful, more 
loyal, more patriotic, than in the past. And while we supplicate 
thy blessing upon us as a town, we would remember the mother 
town, our ancient neighbor, to Avhom we bear the relation of 
daughter, thanking Thee for the pleasant relations that have 
sid)sisted between the daughter and the mother, and praying 
Tliee to bless that ancient mother more and more. And we 
would remember the other contiguous towns, which have shared 



12 Toiun of Cohasset. 

in all our interests, in our prosperity and in our adversity, pray- 
ing Thee to shower down thy rich blessings upon them. 

We would, Almighty God, remember our ancient Common- 
wealth, of which this town has always been a loyal member, 
beseeching Thee to bless her ; give to her increased prosperity, 
and grant that all the institiations that ennoble and bless our 
State may flourish more and more from year to year. 

We would commend to Thee the chief magistrate of our Com- 
monwealth, the lieutenant-governor, the members of the coxm- 
cil, and all who are associated with them in civil authority, 
jDraying Thee to send down thy blessings xipon them. May they 
feel the greatness of the trust committed to them ; may they 
feel that " righteousness alone exalteth a nation," and that as 
they promote the righteousness, honor and dignity of the State, 
they make this ancient Commonwealth more and more glorious. 

Almighty God, we commend to Thee our common country. 
We thank Thee that thou hast delivered our country from all its 
perils ; that thou hast subdued its enemies ; that thou hast over- 
thrown those evil institutions that were a curse to it, and that, 
while we commenced our life as a town subject to a foreign 
nation, we are now permitted to rejoice in belonging to a 
country where freedom universally prevails, and all distinc- 
tions of class and of color have ceased. 

We thank Thee that we have been enabled to welcome to our 
shores strangers from over the dee]^, and those who have come 
to us from the islands of the sea ; — to welcome them to our civil 
privileges, to welcome them to our schools, to welcome them to 
all the rights and opportunities which we ourselves enjoy. 

And now, heavenly Father, again we supplicate thy blessing 
upon us, praymg thee that as this day ends the first century of 
our existence as a town, crowned with so many rich blessings, 
and leaving us surrounded with so many tokens of thy love and 
providential care, it may be the beginning of a new century of 
increased nobleness, prosperity, glory and harmony, of higher 
culture, and of a more Christian and elevated civilization. 

Wilt thou send down thy blessing, heavenly Father, upon 
him who is to speak to us at this time. Send down thy blessing 
upon all the oificers engaged in the exercises of this day. Send 
down thy blessing upon those who have sung to thy praise. 



Centennial Anniversary. 13 

And unto Thee, in the name and as the disciples of Jesus 
Christ, we woiald ascribe the kingdom, the power, and the glory 
forever. Amen. 



Then followed a song by the choir. 

The President. Ladies and Gentlemen, — I have the 
honor and pleasure of introducing to you the Hon. Thomas 
Russell, of Boston, the orator of the day. 

3Ir. President^ — It is a natural and praiseworthy feeling that 
leads the good men and women of New England to celebrate 
the day that marks the birth of each town ; to repeat the 
names of their fathers, and to trace the steps by which each 
little independent community has risen fi'om the poverty and 
weakness of former times to the wealth, prosperity and comfort 
of the present. The town government is the foundation of the 
State ; attendance on town meeting and performance of town 
duties are precious training to the people ; and the New Eng- 
land youth, who has wandered to the ends of the earth in search 
of fame or fortune, looks forward to the day when he shall cast 
anchor near the old homestead, and hopes that, at last, his dust 
shall mingle with the dust of his kindred. 

One hundred years ago your fathers met within these walls 
to receive the charter, and to organize the town of Cohasset. 
The careful antiquarian may remind me that the word " dis- 
trict," instead of " town," was used in the act of the General 
Court, for the reason that Cohasset was still joined with Hing-» 
ham in the choice of representative. But in jierforming muni- 
cipal duties and in bearing municipal burdens, in the care of 
roads, of the poor and of schools, in sharing the counsels of the 
State, and in upholding the arm of the nation, Cohasset has 
always shown herself to be every inch a town. And if any 
lingering doubts remain in your minds as to the style of your 
loved municipality, you will be glad to know, that in 1786 it 
was enacted, that all districts incorporated before 1777 should 
be, to all intents and purposes, towns. 

The history of the founders of Cohasset begins long before 
this date. For they were also among the founders of Hingham. 



14 Tomn of Cohasset. 

On September 18, (O. S.) 1635, Petei- Hobart and twenty-nine 
others drew lots for homesteads, and thus organized that settle- 
ment, which had been begnn two years before by a few of Mr. 
Hobart's townsmen from England. These earliest settlers bore 
the names of Hobart, Jacobs, Smith and Gushing. Peter Ho- 
bart came, with his friends, from Hingham, in Norfolk County, 
and, like many of the early settlers, they gave to the new town 
the name of their old home. In his diary we read this record : 
" 1635, June 8. — I, with my wife & 4 children came safely to 
New England June ye 8, 1635, forever prazed be the God of 
Heaven, my God & King." Mr. Hobart was a man of learn- 
ing, of ability and of zeal — a good specimen of the strong men, 
who, in poverty and in danger, laid the foundations of the 
American Empire. 

In the early annals of your parent town we find much to re- 
mind us of their hardships. We read of bounties given for 
wolf scalps ; of the meeting-house surrounded by palisades as a 
protection against sudden attack ; of John Jacob slain by In- 
dians in his wheat-field, in April, 1676 ; of five dwelling-houses 
burned during King Philip's war. Such was the welcome of 
your fathers to these shores. Such were the perils which they 
gladly bore for their faith. 

The horrors of King Philip's war have often been sketched. 
The flames that were kindled at Swanzey and Dartmouth rolled 
all over the land ; the best blood of the youth was poured out 
in the meadows of Deerfield ; by Turner's Falls ; in the swamps 
of Rhode Island. No town, no home, no man, was safe. Won- 
derful was the devotion that, unaided and alone, endured the 
fearful conflict. 

As an illustration of the sacrifices of our ancestors, we read 
that the public debt of the neighboring colony of Plymouth 
far exceeded the whole amount of personal property in that 
colony. Well may the historian feel pride in recording the fact 
that this debt was paid, principal and interest, — paid jiist as it 
had been agreed to be jDaid. Our fathers never dreamed of re- 
pudiation. And this contract-keeping people found favor with 
a covenant-keeping God. 

This flourishing town was greatly disturbed by the question 
of militia elections, and by a quan'el about the location of the 



Centennial Anniversary. 15 

second meeting-house. This quaiTel I pass by as more interesting 
to the people of that day than to this generation. What inter- 
ests us most is, that the meeting-house was finally built in 1681, 
and that it now stands, — the oldest church edifice in the United 
States, containing beams which were in the first meeting-house, — 
fi-agi-ant with old memories. We love to believe that some of 
the earliest comers to Massachusetts Bay liave worshipped in 
this venerable structure, and to know that the first-born of the 
Pilgrims may have sat within its walls. Such thoughts bring 
us into the more immediate presence of oixr fathers. Well for 
us if we could act as in that presence and be animated by their 
spirit. 

The militia excitement of 1644 and '45 fills a large space in 
the annals of Massachusetts Bay, and for seven years disturbed 
the peace of Hingham. The origin of this trouble was the elec- 
tion of militia captain, and the question involved was the right 
of the people to choose for themselves, without the control of 
the magistrates. Mr. Hobart's course was objected to by Dep- 
uty-Governor Winthrop as tending to " mere democracy." He 
and his associates were fined for their turbulent opposition to 
the court. These fines were resisted ; and for this resistance 
Mr. Hobart was once more dealt with by the court. And when, 
at a great wedding of a Hingham man, Mr. Hobart was invited 
to preach in Boston, he was forbidden by the magistrate, be- 
cause, among other reasons, " he was a bold man, and would 
speak his mind." The people stood by their pastor, paid his 
fines and held him always in higher esteem. 

It is an honorable recoi'd for his many descendants to read of 
their ancestor, that, two hundred and twenty-five years ago, his 
views tended to pure democracy, and that, being a bold man, he 
would speak his mind. Such assertions of eqiial rights as he 
made helped to forward the day when a brave son of Hingham 
should receive the sword of Comwallis at Yorktown, and to 
that gi-eater day, when another man, of Hingham descent, pro- 
claimed that slavery in America was forever at a end. 

We lose our patience as we read the story of this contest. 
We smile at the superstitious bigotry of Winthrop, who finds 
a Providential interposition, when some Hingham men made 
light of the colony's fast, and attempting to take a raft to Bos- 



16 Town of CoJiasset. 

ton, were delayed a month by bad weather. But while we crit- 
icize and smile, we should remember that Hobart and his friends 
were believed to threaten the powers of the rulers of the Prov- 
ince, and that such threats imperilled the right of self-govern- 
ment. We know, also, that they were dreaded, because they 
troubled the churches, and those who troubled the churches 
were believed to endanger souls. On both sides we find error ; 
on both sides sincerity, — the great manly virtue from which all 
virtue springs. There have been men of gentler disi30sition 
than Peter Hobart, of more enlightened views than Gov. Win- 
throp, of more refined taste, of more graceful speech than any of 
the Pilgrim Fathers ; but those men have no New England for 
their monument. 

Besides this internal strife, your fathers were constantly in 
danger from the savages and from the enemies of England. 
They sent six men to fight the Pequots in 1637. They armed 
against the French, the Dutch and the Spaniards. The mounds 
in the burial place at Hingham are believed to be relics of the 
Dutch fort. Capt. Thomas Andrews and nine others perished 
in Sir William Phipps' expedition, in 1690, one of the party 
being slain by the enemy, and the others dying of small-pox. 
Major Samuel Thaxter and five other citizens of Hingham were 
taken prisoners at the fall of Fort William Henry in 1757. Two 
Hingham men had been captured before the surrender of the 
fort, one of whom was put to death, and one of whom, Jere- 
miah Lincoln by name, escaped from captivity to lead an hon- 
orable and useful life. Knight Sprague, a survivor of this ex- 
pedition, lived to a great age, at Leicester, Massachusetts. Capt. 
Joshua Barker was among those who served in the attack on 
Havana in 1740. For these facts I am indebted to the careful 
researches of that learned antiquarian, your neighbor and friend, 
Hon. Solomon Lincoln. These wars were a fit preparation for 
the great war of Independence. The stories of the living and 
the memory of the dead kept ahve a martial spirit in the hearts 
of the colonists, — even as the stories of '76 and the memories of 
1812 prepared for the greater contest of our own day. 

An interesting event in the annals of your parent town was 
the obtaining of a deed of its territory from the heirs of Chick- 
atabut. This powerful sachem, living on the banks of the Ne- 



Centennial Anniversary. 17 

ponset, ruled over a great part of what is now Plymouth and 
Norfolk Counties. He is supposed to have given permission to 
the first settlers to make Hingham their home. His sons, Wam- 
patuck, Squmuck and Ahahden, deeded the whole tract which 
comprise Hingham and Cohasset to Capt. Joshua Hubbard and 
Ensign John Thaxter for the inhabitants, in 1665, on the 4th of 
July. That day was destined to become famous as the date of 
an infinitely greater charter. 

The first mention of this locality in the town records of Hing- 
ham is in February, 1647, when division of meadow land was 
made among the i^roprietors at Conghasset. Not all of these 
proprietors, however, were residents of this territory. The firet 
Hingham settlers here are said, by Rev. Mr. Flint, to have borne 
the familiar names of Beal, Gushing, James, Lincoln, Tower and 
Sutton. With these were joined the families of Bates, Kent, 
Nichols, Orcutt, Pratt and Stoddard. The first settlement is 
reported to have been at Rocky-nook, and on the Jerusalem 
Road. The name of your town is said by some to mean " a 
fishing promontory ; " by others to mean " a j^lace of rocks." 
Either name would fit the place, and either name would apply 
to Cohasset NarroAvs in Sandwich. Mr. Trumbull, the best liv- 
ing authority, assures me that neither of these is correct. Un- 
fortunately he cannot give the true meaning of the word. It is 
enough that Cohasset now means a ])\acQ. where, for two hun- 
dred years, upright men have led honorable lives, and where an 
honest New England town has flourished for a century. 

In 1714, Hingham was requested in vain to remit the school 
and ministerial taxes to this portion of the old town. In 1715 
Hingham voted to grant the request, provided that Cohasset 
would settle an orthodox minister, and accept this settlement of 
the matter cheerfully. But the citizens of Cohasset voted that 
they could not do so cheerfully. In 1717, an Act of the Gen- 
eral Court was obtained creating a second parish in Hingham ; 
and on July 14, 1718, the Act was accepted at a meeting, over 
which Daniel Lincoln presided. The meeting was called for 
Cohasset, alias Little Hingham. This strange phrase is several 
times repeated. To lawyers the word alias savors of anything 
but honesty. Yet here it was applied to a community as honest 
as ever breathed. 



18 Town of Cohasset. 

In 1719, a fast was appointed for the third Thursday of April, 
in order to give a minister a call. Mr, Pierpont was called at 
this time, and Mr. Spear in the spring of 1721. But no one was 
settled until September of that year, when Nehemiah Hobart 
became pastor. In 1727, the precinct petitioned the General 
Court for liberty to apply taxes to schools ; and in October, 1728, 
schools were established. In 1731, it was voted that the two 
arms of the district should each have its share of school money. 
Rocky-nook at one end, and the Beech- Woods at the other. 

In 1740, the church lost its able and beloved pastor, who was 
a worthy descendant of Peter Hobart. His place was not filled 
without long delay, nor without various attempts to fix proper 
terms. One proposition was to pay £400, old tenor, as settlement, 
and £350 as salary, corn and rye to be taken at 15s. in February, 
and beef at lOd. in November, with money enough for twenty 
cords of wood. John Fowle was for a short time the successor 
of Mr. Hobart, and then Rev. John Brown became pastor. 
This able preacher served faithfully for forty-five years, preach- 
ing on the last Sabbath of his life, and dying at the age of sixty- 
six. Governor Hancock's state visit to him was a great event in 
Cohasset. Your town is filled with traditions of his quaint say- 
ings. Serving for one campaign as regimental chaplain in the 
Nova Scotia expedition, he never lost his miUtary spirit, and his 
love of liberty made him a warm friend of Independence. 
When the mild and conservative Mr, Gay asked him what he 
would do if the British should come into Cohasset Harbor and 
try to bum the vessels, your minister replied : " I would shoot 
them !" When, at a meeting in 1775, he had urged recruits to 
enlist, and an old man had taunted him with calling upon others 
to do what he dared not do, he raised his staff and threatened 
to cane the " old Tory " who insulted him. His sermon, preached 
to volunteers under the old elm in Hingham, was a powerful 
exhortation to fight for the liberties of America. A stirring 
sermon on the Boston massacre was published. No one, then, 
had proclaimed that a clergyman should never exhort men to 
discharge their duties in this world ; no one had denied that 
patriotism is a duty. Woe to New England, if, when liberty, 
loyalty and humanity are in danger, her puJpit ever shall be 
dumb. 



Centennial Anniversary, 19 

In 1750, it was reported, at a parish meeting, that the meet- 
ing-house had been completed at a cost of £4,000. This was, 
of course, old tenor, but it was a large sum for the men of those 
days. The building was sufficiently completed to be used in 
1747-48. This is the building in which we now are assembled, 
and for more than a hundred and twenty years its walls have 
echoed the prayers and praises of foiir generations of men. 

In March, 1752, it was voted to petition Hingham and the 
General Court for the setting off of a new town. This project 
was renewed again and again, more especially when town meet- 
ings became frequent, on account of the questions with the 
Mother Country. But Hingham, while earnest for Indepen- 
dence, could not see the importance of self-government to her 
subject province. Yet her composition was after all a compli- 
ment. No wonder that the parent town was loth to part with 
so fair a territory and with so worthy a people. 

Before leaving Hingham, let me refer to a vote in 1768, when 
impending trouble with England admonished the people to look 
well to their ways. A committee was chosen in March, com- 
posed of the best men in the town, who, in May, reported re- 
solves : " First, that we will, by all ways and means in our 
power, encourage and jjromote the practice of virtue and sup- 
pressing of vice and immorality, the latter of which seem daily 
increasing among us, and the decay of the former much to be 
lamented." This " passed in the affirmative." 

Next, they reported, that to promote virtue and discourage 
vice, it was desirable to lessen the number of licensed houses, 
so that there should only be six in the town, three in the North 
Parish, two in the East and one in the South. This j^assed in 
the negative, for there were men in those days (the race is now 
extinct) who loved virtue in the abstract, but opposed every 
practical measure for the sujmpression of vice. 

On March 23, 1767, it was voted by this precinct not to give 
up singing line by line, conservatism winning a victory over the 
radical youth of the church ; and in March, 1768, the porch was 
added to this house. 

On May 7, 1770, the Act of Incorjioration, which had been 
signed by Lieut. Gov. Hutchinson on April 26, was accepted at 
a meeting, where Dea. Isaac Lincoln acted as moderator, and 



20 Town of Cohasset. 

Daniel Lincoln as clerk. It was voted to ask that the style of 
" district " be changed to " town." I have referred to the Gen- 
eral Act by which this was finally accomplished. 

In December, 1770, it was voted that each child bring one 
foot of wood to school, or Is. 6d., and the assessors should 
charge each person that was " behind." Such votes carry us 
back to primitive times, and remind us that even then the edu- 
cation of children was not neglected. The annual election of 
"deer-reeves" tells of the time when the beech-woods were 
alive with game, as the mention of Turkey Hill, in running the 
bounds of the precinct in 1747, kindles the imagination of 
spoi'tsmen. But graver matters soon occupied the minds of 
men who could use fire-anns. On March 7, 1774, it was voted to 
build a closet in the meeting-house for ammunition. Already 
the little town was i^reparing to resist the British Empire ; and 
the same walls that heard your fathers' j)rayers for deliverance, 
and their resolves to resist oppression, sheltered the ammunition 
which was to enforce those resolves, and to show that those 
prayers were honest. 

On December 25, 1774, the town chose a committee of eleven, 
agreeably to the Articles of the Continental Association. Jesse 
Stephenson was chairman of this committee. Thomas Lothrop 
was placed at the head of a committee to draft a paper to 
be signed by freeholders in approval of that association. At 
the same meeting, it was voted to pay the province tax to 
Henry Gardner, and to indemnify the selectmen and constables 
for so doing. This seems a simple matter. But Mr. Gardner 
was treasurer under a revolutionary government, and this vote 
was an act of treason. Thus, day by day, in regular town meet- 
ing, by solemn vote, each little municipality fell into the ranks, 
and pledged its faith for the contest with Great Britain. 

On March 6, 1775, it was voted to pay the share of Cohasset 
for Deacon Lincoln's attendance on the Provincial Congress, 
and for Col. Benjamin Lincoln's attendance at the General 
Court at Salem. It was worth while to be united with Hing- 
ham in the choice of a representative, since thus you shared the 
credit of having such a patriot as your spokesman. Again, in 
November, 1775, your fathers joined with Hingham in sending 
•Col. Lincoln to the Provincial Congress at Concord and at 



Centennial A^mive^^sary. 21 

"Watertown. Thus, by being united with Hingham as a repre- 
sentative district, your town was honored in sending to the leg- 
islature the able general who was destined to receive the sur- 
render of Cornwallis, to sit in the United States Cabinet, to 
crush by his vigor the rebellion of Shay, and to continue always 
the trusted friend of Washington. 

On April 28, it was voted to buy 500 bushels of corn, 100 
pounds of gunpowder and 500 flints. On May 29, a committee 
of correspondence was chosen, of which Dea. Isaac Lothrop was 
chairman. Also a committee, of which Joseph Luther was the 
head, to call on Major Thomas Lothrop, to see whether he will 
call the alarm list together and settle them in some order. In 
March next a committee of safety was chosen, of which Thomas 
Lincoln was chairman. In May, Jonathan Beal was elected rep- 
resentative. On June 15, 1776, it was voted (and no other vote 
was taken) that if the Honorable American Congress should 
declare the United Colonies independent of the Kingdom of 
Great. Britain, the town would support it with their lives and 
fortunes. Thus, when Congress made the declaration, they only 
echoed the voices of the people, and renewed their sacred 
pledges. 

On August 22, it was voted to raise £52 as a bounty for four 
soldiers required for the Northern army. In September, £62 
wei-e raised as bounty for sixteen soldiers to march to Connec- 
ticut. In December, forty shillings were added to the pay of 
volunteers to encourage them to march on the shortest notice. 
Subsequent additions were made to this sum, and a final addi- 
tion was voted of £3, if ordered to march. At a later date, the 
sum of £10 was given for three years enlistments. 

The Declaration of Independence was, in December, copied 
into the town records. That Declaration, as all the world 
knows, contained the immortal words, " All men are created 
equal." Now, I say it reverently, these words have become flesh 
[here the speaker pointed to Senator Revels], and appear 
before us to-day. 

The town did its full share of service in the war. One full 
company, commanded by Capt. Job Cushing, was attached to 
Col. Revere's regiment. Capt. Stowers commanded a company, 
nearly all from Cohasset, who did guard duty on the coast ; and 



22 Town of CoTiasset. 

Noah Nichols was commissioned as captain of an artillery com- 
pany comprising many Cohasset men. 

In the early days of the controversy, your town was repre- 
sented at the Boston tea-party by Major James Stoddard. Tra- 
dition tells, also, of an English brig bound for Boston with sup- 
plies for the British army becalmed off these shores, and taken 
by a boat manned by Cohasset men. Major Stoddard was the 
leading spirit on this occasion ; and when one of the boat's crew 
pointed to the brig's artillery and proposed to return, the major 
declared that there should be no going back. The defences of 
the brig proved to be " quaker guns," and she became an easy 
prize. Her cargo was rum ; and if, as is reported, the town was 
for a few days a little more lively than usual, we must borrow 
the words of Burke, and "pardon something to the spirit of 
liberty." 

Many of you must remember the veteran Noah Nichols, who 
was accustomed in his old age to shoulder his fire-lock 

" Aucl show liow fields were won." 

You have heard his story of Washington ordering him to repair 
the wheel of a gun carriage while on a forced march, of his re- 
quest for permission to stop while mending it, and of the gen- 
eral's abrupt refusal. " It was the hardest thing I ever did," the 
old man would add, " but I did it." 

One of your truest patriots in this contest was Joseph Bates. 
Marching to join the array around Boston, he declared that he 
never should return. He fought at Bunker Hill, and when the 
ammunition of the Americans had foiled, and they were obliged 
to retreat, he was seen throwing stones at the well-armed British 
soldiers as they swarmed into the redoubt. Such was the spirit 
of our fathers, firm in defeat; cast down but not destroyed. 
Well did Washington say, when he heard of the result, the re- 
treat, the British victory, but heard, also, of the spirit of the 
people — well did he say : " Thank God, America is free." 
When a man is in earnest for the right, whether he stands on a 
lost battle-field in Charlestown, Massachusetts, or beneath a gal- 
lows in Charlestown, Virginia, he knows that failure is only the 
prelude of success, and that death will, at last, be swallowed up 
in victory. 



Centennial Anniversary. 23 

During the war, in 1780, the Constitution of this State was 
adopted, with its Bill of Rights, containing the words : " All 
men are created free and equal." These words are often mis- 
quoted as occurring in the Declaration of Independence, but the 
slaveholder who wrote that instrument did not and could not 
use the word " free." It was inserted in our Bill of Rights by 
a wise judge, in oixler to abolish human bondage in Massachu- 
setts. Prior to this time, slavery was held to have a legal exist- 
ence in Massachusetts; and, as the old records of Hingham 
show, even the soil of Cohasset was trodden by master and 
slave. But after the adoption of the State Constitution, a fel- 
low-townsman of your fathers by birth, Levi Lincoln, trying the 
cause of a man held as a slave in Worcester County, procured 
the decision that broke the shackles of every bondman in Mas- 
sachusetts. Mr. Lincoln, who was born in Hingham, rose to 
great eminence at the bar, was chosen to Congress, was ap- 
pointed attorney-general, held the office of lieutenant-governor 
in this State, and declined appointment as judge of the supreme 
court of the United States. But his greatest honor was, that 
he pleaded the cause of the oppressed, and won a victory for 
freedoiiu 

This was one of the forward steps that gained for our State 
its proud position. When the Fifteenth Amendment went into 
operation a few weeks since, it had no effect in Massachusetts. 
Here was no law which it could rejieal. Other States obtained 
their freedom with a great price. We were born free. 

The war of 1812 found the men of Cohasset ready to stand 
by the flag, altliough they were not attached to the administra- 
tion, and although the town had suffered greatly from the em- 
bargo. They forgot that they were Democrats or Federalists, 
and only remembered that they were Americans. A committee 
of safety was chosen, a coast-guard of seventy-five was formed, 
and a committee was sent to ask arms and ammunition from the 
State. Lieut. Gov. Cobb (in the absence of Gov. Strong), re- 
fused the request, and recommended the hoisting of a white 
flag. The men of Cohasset disdained the timid counsels of the 
executive, and finally procured muskets and a field-piece. The 
executive of to-day would give no such prudent advice in any 
similar peril. Governor and lieutenant-governor alike would 



24 Town of Coliasset. 

counsel the use of no flag except their country's flag, — and that, 
nailed to the mast. 

In June, 1814, a British man-of-war having sent a flotilla of 
barges to burn the shipping of Scituate, sailed for Cohasset on 
a like errand. Capt. Peter Lothrop, roused by a messenger from 
Scituate, leaped from his bed ; and without hat or coat, mount- 
ing a horse without a saddle, rode through the village and 
roused the slumbering inhabitants. Marching to White-Head, 
the militia and other citizens threw up an earthwork, pastor and 
people working together ; and when, on Sunday morning, the 
British appeared, they found a redoubt held by what appeared 
to be a formidable force. The enemy withdrew ; the fleet of 
twenty-seven vessels was carried to Gulf River and scuttled. 
The militia of Hingham and Weymouth, with the artillery of 
Abington, Hanover and Scituate, marched to Cohasset ; and for 
three months White-Head was occupied by a garrison. And so 
the community was kept in constant alarm, till, on February 21, 
came the glad tidings of peace, which was celebrated, with the 
birthday of Washington, by a dinner at the academy. 

The diary of Josiah Willcutt tells of the fishing schooner 
Nancy, captured in September, 1814, two of her crew being set 
ashore at Plymouth, and the others carried to Halifax jail. In 
April, 1815, Ezekiel Wallace returned, bringing news that 
Isaiah Lincoln had died in prison. England alone, among civi- 
lized nations, makes war on poor fishemien. 

Tradition tells of a brave son of Cohasset who could not bear 
to see the English fleet insulting our shores. Alone he em- 
barked in his ducking boat, declaring that he would have one 
shot at the enemy. He fired his shot with eflfect, but was taken 
prisoner, and died in Halifax jail. I have inquired in vain for 
his name, but I cannot give up my faith in the story of the Brit- 
ish fleet assailed by a punt. 

To us it seems strange that through this contest the shores of 
this State were invested by the enemy — Nantucket flying a flag 
of truce, Provincetown Harbor occuj^ied by a hostile fleet, and 
Boston closely blockaded. This can never happen again. The 
growth of the country forbids it. Our mail-clad ships would 
forbid it. And, better far, the spirit of the people would guard 
the shores from foreign insult. There may be different opinions 



Centennial Anniversary. 25 

as to the efficiency of our navy as compared with England's. 
But there can be no doubt about the sailors who would man our 
navy. 

" "Vain are those fleets of iron framed, 
Vain tliose all-shattering guns, 
Unless THE Uniox keep untamed 
The strong heart of her sons." 

And that the strength of American hearts is unbroken, the 
recent rebellion has shown. 

Your good town early responded to the call of the country. 
In May, 1861, most liberal provision was made for the pay of 
volunteers and the support of their families. Similar votes were 
passed as need arose. And under the folds of a noble flag, 
given by a patriotic citizen, the sons of Cohasset met, from time 
to time, to enlist for the defence of the Union and Liberty of 
which that flag is the emblem. 

One of your fellow-citizens, Oliver E, Simpson by name, fell 
in the fii'st great battle at Bull Run. The names of your other 
martyi's are known to you all — Arnold, Bates, Litchfield, Lin- 
coln, Manuel, Nimms, Riply, Shays, Treat, Thayer. William 
Bates had the mournful honor of giving two of his sons to his 
country. 

You are all proud of Gen. Zealous B. Tower, first in his class 
at West Point, afterward for a time head of that institution, 
distinguished in the Mexican war, where he fought by the side 
of Lee and Beauregard, winning the high praise of Gen. Scott, 
serving bravely on many a field of the war against rebellion, 
wounded while fighting for the Union, known and honored 
wherever courage and loyalty are honored. Such men are the 
glory of their homes and the strength of America. 

But I must not forget : 

" Peace hath its victories 

Not less reuoAvned than war." 

And of such victories this rugged coast has often been the 
scene. For when the gales have hurled the Atlantic waves 
upon Cohasset rocks, and when some vessel has become a wreck, 
there have never been wanting men who were ready to risk 
their lives to save the forlorn strangers, and every house has 
4 



26 Town of CoJiasset. 

been ready to become a home for the rescued mariner. The 
days of chivalry have not gone, when every north-easterly 
storm summons to the shores of New England a host of men 
ready to brave death in the hope of saving life. To-day you 
can point out the men, who, if to-morrow morning should bring 
a storm and a wreck, would man the life-boat and welcome the 
shipwrecked sailor. If I must ever be subject to marine disas- 
ter (which is not wholly improbable), let it be off Cohasset, and 
let some Doane, or Lothrop, or Tower, receive lae on the shore. 

Grandest of all the scenes of nature is a winter storm upon a 
rocky coast. But grander far to see, as I saw once, as you have 
often seen, the will of man triumphant over the strife of the 
elements. The stranded vessel lies hopeless on the shoal. Her 
master is lashed to the bulwarks ; the freezing sleet has numbed 
his limbs; every wave dashes over him. All the billows of 
despair have gone over his soul. Then a man of the sea leaps 
into his cockle-shell of a boat, sends a token to his children, 
who may be orphans at night, and guides his fi-ail canoe among 
the rocks. Now the waves have swallowed him up, but strength 
and skill j^revail ; he reaches the ship ; he bears the almost life- 
less sailor in safety from the parting fragments of the wi'eck. 

Time would fail me if I sought to recall all the marine disas- 
ters which this spot has witnessed. Let a few records suffice. 

On February 12, 1793, the Danish ship Gertrude Maria, in a 
driving snow storm, struck on a ledge, and finally went to pieces 
on Brush Island, where the survivors of the wreck found poor 
shelter for the night. In the morning hardy sailors rescued 
them, with great hazard, losing one boat upon the rocks, and 
humane friends sheltered them at their homes. This was the 
reception of men, who, fearing that they were about to fall 
into the hands of savages, had cut the gilded buttons from their 
coats, lest they should tempt the barbarous people to crime. 

The King of Denmark, learning the facts, sent medals of gold 
and silver to honor the gallantry and humanity of the people of 
Cohasset ; and when, years after, Mr. Hubbard, a citizen of Bos- 
ton, was carried into the harbor of St. Croix dangerously sick, 
the health laws were suspended ; the rigorous quarantine gave 
way in token of the hospitality which Capt. Clien and his men 
had received when wrecked at Cohasset near the port of Boston. 



Centennial Anniversary. 27 

Thus was America honored in distant lands ; the humanity of 
your fathers was repaid to a stranger, and the nations of the 
world were brought nearer to each other. 

Rev. Ml'. Shaw was among those who were conspicuous for 
their humanity. The names of Doane and Tower were not 
wanting on the Roll of Honor. The proceeds of one of the 
gold medals were most approj^riately used to add to the com- 
munion plate of the first church — appropriately, for when the 
men of Cohasset rescued and fed and clothed and sheltered the 
poor wayfirers cast upon these shores, they bestowed their gifts 
on Him who is commemorated by the communion service : 

" The Holy Supper is kept indeed 
lu wbatso we share with another's need." 

In October, 1849, the British brig St. John, with immigrants 
from Galway, struck on the Sea Ledges, a little to the west of 
the Minot, and immediately went to pieces. More than a hun- 
di-ed of her passengers were drowned. Others were rescued by 
the humane exertions and heroic daring of the men of Cohasset ; 
and every house was open to welcome those who were thus 
snatched from the grave. I have already named the founders 
of your town. Let me name some of those who, in our own 
day, sustained its honor and the honor of humanity. Studley, 
Snow, Lawrence, Hardwick, Lothrop, Tower — these were prom- 
inent in their efibrts to save. I have not been able to procure 
the names of all. Their modesty will thank me, as the modesty 
of all would have thanked me, if all the names had been with- 
held. 

One affecting incident of the wreck must be familiar to you 
all. Mr. Lothrop watched a little package that floated in the 
surf, and grasping it, found, to his surprise, an infant girl. The 
mother had wrapped up her child with careful hands, and com- 
mitted her to the waves, as once a mother placed her loved child 
in a little ark upon the water's edge, and prayed that Heaven 
would save the infant's life. And this child, also, was received 
into princely hands. But a mother's care and the stranger's 
daring would have been vain, had it not been decreed by Him 
who holds the waters in the hollow of his hand that this child 
should live and not die. 



28 Town of Coliasset. 

Another child was brought in this vessel by her aunt to meet 
the mother who had come to America before. When the mother 
sought her infant, she found her resting with her head upon the 
shoulder of her aunt, but the child and the woman alike were 
dead. The heart-broken mother only survived for three days. 

In striking contrast with the heroism and kindness of your 
people, was the heartlessness of the captain of the St. John, 
who, with the crew, left his vessel in a boat only half filled, and 
who, in his cruel cowardice, neglected to inform the crew of a 
life-boat that his wrecked vessel was filled with perishing men 
and women. 

Life is filled with just such contrasts. The same waters that 
witnessed the heroism of Capt. Williams and his officers going 
down at their posts, unwilling to desert the sinking flag, saw 
the captain of the Bombay leaving the ship whose sides he had 
crushed, hurrying away as fast as wind and steam could cany 
him, trembling all over with cruel fear, lest in the bottom of his 
vessel there might be some plank as rotten as his own heart. 

On January 19, 1857, the brigantine New Empire was wrecked 
at Little White Head. The floating ice prevented all approach 
to the shore. Peter Follen, procuring two cylinders from the 
Humane House, placed them beneath his knees, and took a line 
to the ship, casting in his lot with the shipwrecked men that he 
might save them all. 

Of course the standard jokes about wreckers are related of 
the inhabitants of these shores. Of one it is said especially, 
that when asked what his luck had been for the season, he an- 
swered : " I got a good deal of stuff and put it in the barn, but 
they do steal so the second time, that sometimes I almost wish 
there never would be another wreck." 

A much better authenticated story, is that of the Swedish 
brig wrecked on Minot's Ledge, December, 1836 ; her two decks 
washing ashore upon Beach Island, three miles distant, her 
precious cargo strewn all along the shores upon the bottom of 
the sea. Ninety per cent, of that cargo was recovered ; every 
bar of iron was delivered to the owners, the count answering 
the invoice ; while of forty bales of crash, consigned to one 
Boston merchant, forty save one were carried to him in the 
winter, and the remaining bale was restored in June. 



Centennial Anniversary. 29 

In 1798, the last slave ship that sailed from Boston was driven 
upon the bar at the mouth of your harbor, and so her criminal 
voyage came to a fortunate end. 

Since the erection of Minot Light, these disasters are almost 
unknown in this spot. The whole country recollects the de- 
struction of the first light in April, 1851. A long storm had 
strewn the shores of New England with shipwrecked vessels. 
A foi-mer gale had shattered one of the iron pillars that upheld 
the structui-e. And when the morning light of April 18 broke 
through the storm, the anxious eyes that looked seaward could 
see no vestige of the lighthouse. Two men perished in its 
downfall. The present structure is the pride of the coast. Had 
it been erected in ancient times, it would have added one to the 
wonders of the world. As it stands now, firm and erect amid 
the raging sea, it is not only a noble triumph of human skill, 
but the fittest emblem of a true man constant for the right 
against a gainsaying world. Such a symbol might have been 
borne upon the coat-of-arms of Peter Hobart in 1645, or, in 
1829, upon the spotless shield of William Lloyd Garrison. 

But it is not in scenes of war or of wreck that the true life 
of such a town is found. You love Cohasset, because here for 
generations an industrious, intelligent and contented people 
have found a happy "home. Here, as among all your neighbors 
of the South Shore, hard work, " plain living, high thinking," 
with peace and freedom, have been the habitual life of the peo- 
ple. Your fathers turned early from the hard and scanty soil 
to reap their richest harvests on the sea. The exportation of 
lumber to the West Indies has ceased. No more fortunes can 
be made by selling fish at famine prices in the Atlantic and 
Mediterranean ports of France and the Peninsula. But still, 
like your fathers, you draw wealth from the ocean, and with it 
the more precious treasures of vigor, energy and enterprise. 
Nor is agriculture neglected even on these shoi-es. Labor and 
skill make your rocky fields productive. Your pleasant beaches 
tempt and refresh the wearied fugitives from the cares and toils 
of the city. The growth of Cohasset in wealth has been used 
as an argument to stimulate your neighbors to demand railroad 
fivcilities. Well may they desire to share those facilities, when 
they read that your valuation has increased from $306,000, in 



30 Town of Cohasset. 

1840, to nearly 11,800,000 to-day. Your care of schools in- 
creases with your wealth, increasing the town appropriation in 
twenty-five years from $1,100 to 14,000. Three younger 
churches have grown up around this venerable mother. The 
last not only bears a pleasant name — " the Beechwood Church " 
— but its origin carries us back to Puritan days, for it was 
founded after forty days of prayer by an earnest woman. And 
while this takes our thoughts back to old times, the first contri- 
bution for this church reminds us of a stoiy that can never grow 
old. For the first gift set apart for its treasury was the smallest 
coin that ever issued from our mint. 

And who and what are the men that are the product of your 
institutions? You may well boast of Benjamin Pratt, who was 
born March 13,1710-11, in a house on what is now called South 
Main Street — on a homestead which has now been in possession 
of the family for one hundred and eighty-five years. A gifted 
writer in prose and verse, an eloquent and successful lawyer, he 
was appointed to the high place of chief justice of New York, and 
died in 1763, too early to share in the contest for Independence, 
although he heard the argument of James Otis against Writs of 
Assistance, and declined a retainer on each side of that great 
argument. He had collected materials for a history of New 
England ; and those who love to read her story have reason to 
lament that he did not complete his work. In his youth, a fall 
from a tree made Benjamin Pratt a cripple for life, and this was 
the reason that he gave up his chosen occupation as a black- 
smith and become a lawyer. Rare example of Yankee thrift. 
Accident ruins the young blacksmith. His parents send him to 
the greatest master of law, and fit their unfortunate boy to 
become chief justice of a great State. 

In later days, Middlebury College was glad to receive a Co- 
hasset man as president, in the person of Rev. Dr. Bates. I 
have already spoken of the soldier who is your pride. If the 
grief were not too recent, and if his friends were not so near, I 
should speak of the skilled and loved physician who served this 
State faithfully for years, and whose hospitality made so many 
New Englanders at home in the heart of a Western city. 

The true glory of this, as of other New England towns, is 
found, not in the conspicuous few, but in the honorable and use- 



Centennial Anniversary, 31 

fill lives of the many. And if a stranger desired to see a com- 
munity who live in the fear of God and the love of their fel- 
low-men ; who mind their own business, and yet make the 
cause of the poor and ignorant their business ; whose best men 
render every precious service to their town without money and 
without price ; a community from which a dying man would be 
glad to select guardians for his orphan children ; a people who 
stand firm for the faith of their fathers, yet are ready to receive 
all the truths which lay undeveloped in the creed of those 
fathers ; " Catholic for all the truth of God : Protestant against 
every error of man ; " if a visitor sought such a community, I 
would take him to a village on the " South Shore " and tell him 
to seek no farther. 

And as we admire your pleasant town to-day, decked as it is 
in holiday attire ; as we see all around us proofs of comfort and 
thrift and taste and progress, we know that we OAve it all to the 
character of our people and to the virtues of their ancestors. 
As I enjoyed yesterday the beautiful suburbs of Boston, the 
trim lawns and blossoming shrubs and graceful mansions, an es- 
teemed friend said to me : " It is all the fruit of free schools." 
And true it is, that all the comfort and elegance of your homes 
is the direct product of New England institutions and of Pui-- 
itan virtues. Faith and thought made our fathers exiles. They 
founded this new country in faith, and reared theii* children to 
careful and vigorous thought. They decreed that all the chil- 
dren should be taught — above all, that they should all be 
" taught of the Lord." 

They honored labor. Never was it a reproach in New Eng- 
land, even when slavery had a nominal existence here, that a 
man worked with his hands. Never was there a time when the 
rulers of our towns, and the majority of their representatives, 
were not men who earned their living by the sweat of their 
brow. 

They kept the day of the Lord strictly according to their light, 
giving, on their first Sabbath, such an example of devotion as 
the world had never seen. Who knows liow miicli of the en- 
ergy and vigor of New England men is due to this their ances- 
tral habit ? Of all innovations that are called reform, the most 
accursed is that which would rob the working man of his day of 



32 Town of Coliasset. 

rest. I speak not of theological origin or of divine sanction, 
but of common-sense and of human need. Men may differ hon- 
estly about ten hour laws and eight hour laws, but the worst 
enemy of labor is the man who, upon any pretence, would take 
from the sons of labor this precious inheritance. 

Let us stand in the old ways ; with free thought, with free 
schools, and, in Choate's words, " the Bible in the schools as 
long as there's a piece of Plymouth Rock left, big enough to 
make a gun-flint of;" with the Sabbath undesecrated ; labor 
honored and protected ; public faith kept. Then we will not 
fear that any local change in the preponderance of power, any 
hostile legislation, any sectional prejudices, will ever blight our 
prosperity. New England can never be left out in the cold 
while the fire of faith glows in her heart and the warm blood 
of patriotism''courses in all her veins. 

Men speak of the danger from foreign influence ; from the hosts 
of ignorant immigrants ; from superstition and from atheism. I 
look at our meeting-houses and school-houses, the fortifications of 
America ; I find the great heart of the people sound, and I defy 
all hostile powers. From unbelief and misbelief, from tyranny 
and anarchy, the faith of our filth ers, as firm as in their day and 
with all the light of this day, will ever save us, even as the rocks 
of Coliasset roll back the Atlantic waves. 

The red cedar, that fastens itself in the granite, and forces it- 
self through the crevice of the rock, and sends its roots deep 
into the earth, and spi-eads its verdant boughs in spite of north 
wind and east wind — that is an emblem of New England pros- 
perity. It is a symbol of native virtue, contending with circum- 
stances, triumphant over fate. He who planted that vigorous 
shoot on these rugged shores will sustain it. And while we are 
true to ourselves, as He was with the fathers, so He will be with 
us. 

The Pkesident. I will take this occasion to introduce to 
you a gentleman whom it gives us pleasure to have with us 
here to-day, as an honored representative of the State of 
Mississippi in the Senate of the United States, and a repre- 
sentative, also, of a once down-trodden race, the Hon. 
Hiram Revels, of Mississippi. (Loud applause.) 



Centennial Anniversary. S3 

ADDRESS OF SE:NAT0R REVELS. 

Mr. President and Friends, — I am in no condition to make a 
speech, as I have a very bad cold, and am very hoarse, as you 
perceive ; but I cannot refrain from the effort to say a few words, 
at least, to an audience like this — a body of ladies and gentle- 
men to whom I and my race owe so much. 

It may seem a little strange that I, an entire stranger to most 
of you, am in your midst. Should it seem so to any, I will 
assign a few i-easons why I am here : I was invited to come, and 
very thankfully accepted the invitation. Again, I was aware, 
that if I came here to-day, I should see quite a number of the 
citizens of the old Bay State, whom I should not see if I did 
not come. And, in the next place, I desired to see them in 
order that I might say to them what I would I could say to 
every citizen of the State of Massachusetts, that I, and the 
entire colored people of the South, aye, the colored people of 
the United States, are fully aware of the extent of our indebt- 
edness to you for the happy condition we occupy to-day in this 
country. The colored people of the South, to an extent that 
would be very surprising to you, were you fully aware of it, 
have known, for years and years past, the sympathy that you 
have felt for them. For years past, they have known the efforts 
that you were making in their behalf, to break the fetters with 
which they were bound. For years and years they have known 
how you have been laboring and toiling for them, sympathizing 
with them, and doing everything in your power in order to 
secure their emancipation from degrading and ruinous slavery. 
The question may occur to the minds of some, How did they 
know that, when, according to the laws of most of the slave 
States, they were not allowed to be taught to read the word 
*' Christ," not allowed to be taught to read the word " heaven," 
even? How could they have a knowledge of these things, 
when it was for the interest of their owners to keep from them 
the knowledge of what you were doing in their behalf, more 
than it was to keep them from learning to read the name of 
Christ ? I will enlighten your minds upon this point. There 
were not only in the southern States the field or plantation 
hands, consisting of men, women and children, but there were 
house servants. These, of course, came in contact with their 



34 Town of Cohasset. 

owners constantly, and their quick and ready ears, whenever 
they heard a word in regard to slavery, or in regard to the 
people of Massachusetts, — Wendell Phillips, Garrison, Sumner, 
Wilson, and many others, whom I could name had I time, — 
whenever they heard a word in regard to what these men were 
doing against the institution of slavery, those quick ears would 
retain the words, and, prompted by joy, as soon as they got 
among their fellow-servants they would tell them what they 
had heard, and then the news spread and spread through the 
South, until the names of Phillips and Garrison, and the name 
of Massachusetts, became sacred names with the slave popula- 
tion. (Applause.) 

Now, I wish to express to you, and they desire that I shall 
express to you, their thanks for what you have done in their 
behalf; for the labors and efforts which, as they are well aware, 
accomplished so much towards their liberation. 

My friends, I have but very little more to say at this time. I 
wish to say for your encouragement, as I know that you wish 
those well for whom you have labored so long and so hard, 
that they are doing surprisingly well, everything considered. 
Schools are being established all over the South, and never did 
you see men and women, even grown men and women, more 
desirous of acquiring knowledge and becoming enlightened, 
than are the colored men and women of the South; and 
when it comes to the children and youth, they desire to 
become educated and enlightened, and the opportunities of 
becoming so are being extended, and they are drinking in 
knowledge as the thirsty earth drinks in the summer rain. 
I say this to you, my friends, for your encouragement, and it is 
my belief, that, if a fair opportunity is given to the colored 
people of the South, they will do well. They have a great 
desire to acquire property, and they are acquiring property very 
rapidly. Many of them desire to purchase land, and they have 
the means to purchase small amounts of land if they could get 
it ;. but their former owners are trying to hold on to their land. 
You know that one of those men owns as much land as six men 
should own. That is the way, you know, it has been there; 
but now the taxes are so heavy that, as they have no one to 
work the land for them, but ai'e obliged to hire their labor, they 
wiU be compelled to sell then* land, or a part of it. Occasion- 



Centennial Anniversary, 35 

ally a very large plantation or farm is sold, and then the way 
the freedmen do is this : One or two cannot buy that planta- 
tion, but as many as fifteen or twenty put their money together, 
and thus get enough to purchase the farm. Then they go to 
work on it together for a while ; but there is this regular agree- 
ment, when they purchase it in the way I have described, that 
by-and-by it shall be divided equally among the twenty, if they 
desire it, and each one have his part separate from the others. 
I merely mention this fact to let you see how desirous they are 
of acquiring property. They are doing well, I know it will 
encoixrage you to hear it, dear friends. 

Let me say, in conclusion, you are doubtless aware of this 
fact, that somehow the southern people, while they hated all 
New England, hated Massachusetts a little more than they did 
any other part of it. That was greatly in your favor ; and the 
more they hated you, the better the slaves, knowing why they 
did it, loved you. 

Dear friends, I thank you for your attention. I am so hoarse 
that it troubles me to speak or think. I have this to say to you, 
my friends : I love you, my race loves you. The Lord bless you. 
I hope to meet you in heaven. (Applause.) 

The choir then sang an anthem. 

The exercises concluded with prayer by Rev. C. B. Smith, 
of Cobasset : — 

Great and eternal God, our God, from everlasting to ever- 
lasting thou art God. With Thee there is no variableness or 
shadow of turning. Thy years are through all generations. 
We thank Thee that we are performing our brief part upon the 
stage of action at this time ; that we have been relieved from 
the perils and the hardships which have been endured by those 
who have gone before us ; and while we enjoy the legacy con- 
ferred upon us by them, may we feel that still greater responsi- 
bilities devolve upon us, to leave to those who shall come after 
us better things than our fathers left for us. 

And now, as we enter upon the duties of a new century, we 
call upon our souls and all within us to bless Thy great and glo- 



36 Toivn of Cohasset. 

rious name, that we welcome here to-day the representative of 
a race long down-trodden and oppressed, but who to-day, with 
unmanacled limbs, stand upon the same platform of universal 
liberty with us, endued with all the rights and privileges of 
citizenship. And we pray that thy blessing may attend them 
in the acquisition of knowledge, and in making such progress 
as will enable them to acquit themselves with honor to them- 
selves and our whole nation. 

Great God, let thy blessing be ujDon us ; and, as we shall have 
passed from the stage before another occasion like this will have 
come to pass, oh may it be our lot to be acting in scenes more 
glorious and desirable ! When heart and flesh shall fail us, be 
Thou our portion and our God, and in the world to come may 
we be prepared to honor and praise and glorify thee. And to 
God, the only wise, Father, Son and Spirit, shall be the glory 
evermore. Amen. 

The procession then re-formed, and marched to one of the 
depot buildings, which had been handsomely decorated for 
the occasion by Lamprell & Marble, of Boston, where a 
dinner had been provided by Thomas M. Smith, of Cohasset. 
The tables were laid for six hundred persons, and nearly 
every seat was occupied, the presence of ladies adding 
greatly to the interest and pleasure of the occasion. The 
company having been seated, the President of the Day again 
extended a cordial welcome to all, and requested Rev. J. R. 
HusTED, of Cohasset, to ask the divine blessing. 

PRAYER BY REV. MR. HUSTED. 

Our heavenly Father, source of all being and blessing, we 
thank thee for all the gifts of thy providence and grace, and espe- 
cially for the gift of thy Son, Jesus Christ, through whom all 
other blessings are derived to us. We thank Thee for this day, 
for these pleasant memories and associations, for the intellectual 
entertainment with which we have been favored, for the pleas- 
ant auspices under which we are convened to celebrate this 



Centennial Anniversary. 37 

centenary occasion, and for the food now spread before us for 
tlie refreshment of our natures. May Thy blessing rest upon 
us, and may we partake of thy gifts with grateful hearts, recog- 
nizing the Giver, and by cherishing the sentiments and purposes 
of patriots and Christians show that the example of our fathers 
has not been lost upon us. Finally, when we, like them, shall 
be called upon to pass from earth, may we be received to enjoy 
the blessings of thine upper and better kingdom. All of which 
we ask in the name and for the sake of thy Son, our Saviour 
and Redeemer, 

An hour was then happily spent in disposing of the sub- 
stantial and bountiful repast spread upon the tables, after 
which the President introduced Mr. George Beal, Jr., of 
Cohasset, as the Toast-Master of the occasion, who gave the 
first regular toast, as follows : — 

The President of the United States. 

Hon. Thomas Russell, Collector of Boston, was called 
upon to respond. 

SPEECH OF COLLECTOR RUSSELL. 

I am sure you have all heard enough of my voice to-day, and, 
fortunately, tliere is no need for any one to respond to a senti- 
ment in honor of the President of the United States. This 
rescued land responds for him. Every spear of grass that grows 
upon your hills, every wave that rolls upon your shores, takes 
to itself a tongue, and tells the praises of the loyalty and cour- 
age to which M'e owe the deliverance of our country. (Ap- 
plause.) If the President were here, \ am sure he would turn 
to those volunteers who acted as our escort to-day, and say that 
all the wealth and all the beauty of this town and of this land, 
all these thriving farms, all the comfort of these homes, all the 
grateful feelings with which we keep this thanksgiving to-day, 
we owe to them, and to those who, like them, braved death at 
the call of patriotism for the defence of liberty. (Applause.) 



38 Town of Cohasset. 

And then, perhaps, the President would add that it is the glory 
of America that she is known in foreign lands, not only by her 
great cities, New York and Washington and Boston, but in 
time of war they hear also of the little towns, of the Cohassets, 
the Hinghams, the Scituates, the Plymouths. Our glory is that 
our strength is not in a great city, like Paris or London, but all 
over America, from ocean to ocean, in these little pati'iotic com- 
munities. There is the imperishable life of the nation, which, 

" Vital in every part, * * * * 
Cannot but by annihilation die." 

One word more of the Pi'esident. It is the glory of Gen. 
Grant, that long before the proclamation of emancipation, he 
announced that emancipation must come ; that only by justice 
could we win victory. He was the author of that imperishable 
sentiment : " Human liberty the only foundation of human gov- 
ernment." That we have obtained. Now we want to go one 
step further. We want a fifteenth amendment of the heart; we 
want to see the last of that mean, lingering prejudice which 
denounces and despises any man because of his color. (Ap- 
plause.) The world does move ; I thought of it when I saw 
that honored senator take his place in the church. Forty 
years ago, in a country town of Massachusetts, such was the 
prejudice against color, that the hotel refused to receive any 
colored man who happened to be travelling through the place. 
There was one man in the town whose doors were open to any 
one, and to his house every colored man was sent. That man 
is to-day Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 
(Applause.) And speaking — presuming to speak, as you have 
called upon me to do — for the President of the United States, I 
give you, — The Fifteenth Amendment of the National Heart : 
Equality before the law, we have it ; equality in social life, we 
must have it. 

Mu&ic. 

Second regular toast : 
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts— The home of the Puritan 

stm. 



Centennial Anniversary. 30 

Gov. Claflin rose to respond, when three cheers were 
called for, and given with great heartiness and unanimity. 

SPEECH OF GOV. CLAFLIN. 

I am sure, Mr. President and friends, that you would all pre- 
fer that the gentleman who has just taken his seat should have 
answered for the State as well as for the President of the 
United States. I accept your cheers as an indication of the 
sentiments which you cherish towards the State of Massachu- 
setts, the glorious old Commonwealth, 

I thank you most cordially for the opportunity you have given 
me to attend these ceremonies to-day, and to hear the pleasant 
voice of my friend, who has delineated your history so graphi- 
cally and clearly. I am sure that, a hundred years hence, the 
historian who turns back to the oration which has been deliv- 
ered this day will feel that, with all the advances that may have 
been made in that time, they cannot hope to have a better 
oration on the celebration of the second centenary than that to 
which we have listened to-day. 

I am called upon to say a word in behalf of the Common- 
wealth. Looking back for a moment to the period to which 
our thoughts naturally turn to-day, looking back to the year 
1770, what was our number? Including the State of Maine, 
we then had 250,000, possibly 275,000 inhabitants. To-day we 
have almost six times that number in our own CommonAvealth, 
of about one-third the territory then embraced within the limits 
of the colony. While the population has increas'^d in this 
great ratio, the wealth of the State has increased m much 
greater proportion. To one coming from a distant State to 
visit us, the question might occur, "What h:is brought all this to 
pass ? How comes it that this State, with its unfavorable soil, 
with its cold and cheerless climate, should have been so success- 
ful?" Now, I am not one of those who believe that Massachu- 
setts is without great natural advantages. I believe that God 
has given us a very favorable location on the earth's surface. 
Our immense sea-coast, our fine and beautiful harbors, afford 
advantages which, in the hands of an enterprising and energetic 
people, enable them to make good their position. True, Ave 



4:0 Town of Cohasset. 

have not the mines nor the fertile soils which abound in other 
States, but we have these other facilities ; and, above all, in the 
providence of God, he ordered to these shores that bold Puri- 
tan band who laid the foundations of the State in righteousness, 
and left us a richer legacy than mines or soils. They left to us 
a system of public schools and a love of industry and integrity, 
which have borne their fruits in enriching our State, in giving 
us a world-wide fame, and in giving us men who shall make the 
State forever glorious. And to-day, as we look back to the 
year 1770, and see that Massachusetts then took a high place in 
the counsels of the nation, how can we say that, with all the 
advancement of other parts of the land, we have fallen back ? 
We stand to-day with two members of the cabinet — ^noble, 
tiTisted, faithful, true men, who in all parts of the land are 
honored for their intelligence and their true principles, repre- 
senting the State of Massachusetts. Then, when we look at 
the Senate, in what period of the history of Massachusetts do 
we find her better represented than she is to-day ? I like to 
look forward to the future. Some people fear that Massachu- 
setts is not to grow ; that she is not to progress in all that makes 
a State great and glorious. But I have no fears ; I believe that 
she is greater to-day in her power and in her opportiinities for 
improvement than ever before. The great improvements of 
Massachusetts have been made principally in the last fifty years. 
All her material interests have been improved in that time ; her 
school system has been brought to its present degree of perfec- 
tion, and it is bearing its fruits. Her population has increased 
more rapidly in the last ten years than at any previous period 
in her history, and so, as it seems to me, she is to go on in the 
future ; and at the end of another hundred years, this State, 
though small in territory, will have two or three times the pop- 
ulation she numbers to-day. Nothing can take from us the 
advantageous position we hold upon the earth's surface, and 
nothing, I believe, will take from us the resolution to improve 
all the opportunities we have, whether material, moral or intel- 
lectual. 

I thank you, gentlemen, for the opportunity you have given 
me to be with you and enjoy this pleasant occasion. I will not 
trespass further upon your time, for I see all around me men 



Centennial Anniversary. 41 

who are familiar with your history, who rejoice with you more 
than I can express, who feel that they are a part with you, and 
are ready to express their feelings. 

Music. 

Third regular toast : 

Welcome, sous and daughters of Cohasset ; welcome adopted sons 
and daughters ; welcome all to the family table to-day. 

SPEECH OP LOEING LOTHROP. 

Mr. Chairman, — It has been said of language, that it was 
given us to conceal our thoughts. It is indeed true that speech 
does partially conceal or misrepresent many of the thoughts we 
desire and strive to utter. But there can be no obscurity as to 
the sentiments of this hour. Uttered or unexpressed, they are 
simple and eloquent. The girls and boys of this fair town, in 
returning, on this festal day, to the home of their earliest years, 
do so with a clear conception of its significance. The lapse of 
time changes not our sympathies. The warm pulses of youth, 
of love and beauty, of confident hope and innocent joy, are 
cherished still. The heart is freed from perverting influences. 
The sensibilities are tender and open to impressions, and the as- 
sociations of the hour warm and enliven them. We think of 
matters in which the affections are concerned. Precious, in- 
deed precious, the remembrance of our youthful home. Pre- 
cious the remembrance of meetings at the domestic fireside, 
seasons of warm-hearted fellowshii). We cherish these memo- 
ries with affectionate and unfailing regard. And so, Mr. Chair- 
man, we are happy to be with you to-day, and give and receive 
the warm hand of fellowship, and go up together to a higher 
standpoint, from which to look out upon the past, view the 
present, and prepare for the future. Thus we mark our progress 
in life. 

It is, however, with mingled emotions that I respond to your 
call. Returning to the scenes of our brightest and happiest days, 
we feel deeply the changes of the past. Even the face of nature 
wears a different aspect. The hills are not so green, the rocks 
are not so rough and huge, and 
6 



42 Town of Cohasset. 

" The schoolboy spot 
We ne'er forget, though there we are forgot," 

appears less cheerful now. 

Everything relating to man in this world is stamped with 
change. This we recognize ; this we experience. Still we can- 
not think of the companions of our youth, who have left their 
native land, the land of their fathers ; who have forgotten us, 
or themselves lie forgotten in the grave ; of the house which 
sheltered ns ; of the parents who cared for us, and the spot 
where we knelt down to say our simple prayer; of the father 
whose hand was laid upon the head of his boy as he went forth 
to meet the duties and perils and struggles of life ; and, above 
all, of her whose smile was the dearest enjoyment of our young 
life, without feeling in the soul a void which naught can fill. 
All, all, is changed. A century is past, 

"And all its aching joys are now no more, 
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this 
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur. Other gifts 
Have followed for such loss ; I would believe. 
Abundant recompense." 

Mr. Chairman, I loved, when a boy, to stand on the summit 
of the great rock a little south of the house in which I was born, 
just as the sun's golden rim touched the horizon, and linger 
there till the village beneath was hushed, and, their evening 
song ended, the birds had gone to their leafy homes, and the 
harvest moon, pale and silvery, came forth undimmed by the 
brightness of her effulgent brother. Many years since then have 
passed away. The green leaves have withered and dropped and 
perished ; the trees have bent under the winter's snows, and 
again have put forth their buds and blossoms, and their thick 
foliage has cast in summer its broad shadow on the earth. Suc- 
cessively have they been changed by decay's effacing fingers, to 
again live in beauty and joy. It was an inviting spot. That 
rocky hillside is even now more grateful to my view than almost 
any other place. 

" Oh, there are green spots on the path of time ! " 

So, my friends, as we return each to his once cherished spot 
and linger there, the freshness of young life returns. Our past 



Centennial Anniversary. 43 

lives in the present, and the scenes of childhood are not loved 
in vain. 

But touching memories are now awakened. 

" It was a night of summer, and the sea 
Slept like a child in mute tranquillity," 

and from the heights of that granite hill I looked out upon the 
broad ocean, and watched the white sail far distant down the 
bay, and fancied the joy of the mariner as he saw his native 
land once more. 

It was a winter's night, and I watched the white-winged ves- 
sels as they went out from the land, and saw the storm-cloud 
gather round some frail bark. 

" In her was many a mother's joy, 
And love of many a weeping fair ; 
For her was wafted in its sigh 
The lonely heart's unceasing prayer ! 
And oh ! the thousand hopes untold 
Of ardent youth, that vessel bore. 
Say, were they quenched in waters cold ? 
For she was never heard of more. 

These pensive utterances are natural, and it seems to me in 
harmony with the spirit of this anniversary day. But I must 
end them now, to say a word in regard to a matter of local in- 
terest. Cohasset is a fair town, as well as a land of mighty 
rocks. Your common looks fresh and cheerful. The old church, 
which has witnessed scenes which none of us can recall, still 
stands. I have heard it said that some persons desire to Vemove 
it, and place it on the west side of the street. Why, my friends, 
the plain was large enough forty-five years ago, when Col. New- 
comb Bates commanded the regiment, and Job Bates and Eliot 
Stoddard were the drummers of the Cohasset company, and Mr. 
John Wilcutt was fifer. The brigade mustered at that time at 
Cohasset, and the town has not seen sucli a day since, nor wit- 
nessed such exploits as were then accomplished by the Ilingham 
Rifle Company, when, in sham fight, they vanquished their foes, 
and drove them, in the confusion of utter defeat, from the field 
of battle. You will never see a day like that. (Laughter.) 
The town had room enough then. Don't remove the old church. 



44 Toivn of Cohasset. 

Should you ever do it, be sure and put up on the spot where it 
stood a notice of the fact in large letters, assuring all interested 
that this is Cohasset still. 

Indulge me now, Mr. Chairman, in a few brief reminiscences. 
Soon after I began the study of Latin, I was told that the goose 
was placed by the Romans high among the sacred birds, because 
the cackling of geese preserved the Roman State from the in- 
cursions of the Gauls, who were about to render themselves 
masters of the capital ; and I soon learned that they had not 
failed to still be the most vigilant sentinels that could be placed 
to warn parents when their boys or girls returned a little late at 
night, and wanted to get into the house and up to bed in the 
most quiet way possible. I remember well two companies of 
them, belonging to the neighbors, which used to station them- 
selves on the hillside just opjDOsite my father's house. Do my 
best, I never could escape their vigilance. The slightest noise 
was sufficient to awaken them, and then they sent forth reiter- 
ated cries, not unlike the hissing of a serpent ; and though I 
used now and then " to put in a stone by way of punctuation," 
it seemed only to stir the whole mviltitude to join in a loud 
chorus. Then ensued the silence and sullenness of defeat. Let 
me ask if any of you suffered thus ? If you did, I am glad of 
it. You can well remember what measures of satisfaction you 
devised but never executed. Have you not despised a goose 
ever since ? I have, exceedingly. 

I should like, Mr. Chairman, to review the past, and speak of 
some of the men who in my boyhood seemed to wear a myste- 
rious being ; but I must content myself with alluding to one 
only, who lived in the south part of the town, and who spent 
much time in fishing and gunning. Some of his adventures and 
stories were wonderful. He had an old English gun, which he 
said would carry about a pint and a half of shot. One day he 
was on the beach, where was a multitude of peeps. He said the 
beach was literally covered. So he raised his gun, and, just as 
he pulled the trigger, he gave her a good shake, so as to scatter 
the shot well ; but, strange to tell, he did not get a single peep^ 
though he picked up a bushel and a half of legs. I knew him 
well, as in summer I passed his house daily, and he had a won- 



Centennial Anniversary, 45 

derful influence iipon my youthful fancy. I would not have said 
anything but " Yes, sir " and " iVb, sir " to him, for the world. 

Some of you recollect when old Father Little carried the mail 
and two passengers beside himself in a square-top chaise to Bos- 
ton, and when he came to a decent sort of a hill he used to 
push behind and help his jaded animals all he could. One 
morning the town was surprised at the appearance of a stage 
coach, drawn by two horses, one very large and one very small. 
It took some weeks of observation and reflection to settle in my 
mind why he selected horses so difiering in size, one so large and 
one so small ; and the conclusion at last was, that he did it on 
true philosophical principles — in perfect harmony with the oper- 
ation of the laws of the mind. The large horse was an indica- 
tion of sti-ength and power and of high aspirations ; the small 
one of weakness and humility ; so that, as he looked upon them, 
Father Little was sure to preserve the medium of thought and 
feeling, and keep on in the even tenor of his way, neither elated 
by success nor depressed by difticulties and doubts. I have no 
doubt his horses knew just how many steps they took from Co- 
hasset to Boston. But who shall describe the scene when a 
coach drawn by four horses left the tavern, then kept by our 
fellow-citizen, Thomas Smith ! 

Did time permit, I should like to give myself up to the many 
and various associations which now cluster around the memory. 
This I should like to do, in view of my personal union with my 
fellow-men, and in view of the union of man with man, and in 
illustration of the sure results of such union. I know you will 
yet indulge me in one or two reminiscences. First, of old Dea- 
con Kent, who used to sit under the pulpit in yonder venerable 
church during the Sabbath service. He seemed to me the old- 
est man that ever lived. He sat nearly in front, though below 
the preacher, exposed, as it often seemed to me, to great peril. 
Parson Flint used to place his sermon on a large open Bible, 
and when filled with the spirit of his discourse would courtesy 
and gesticulate with energy. I expected to see the large book 
fall on Deacon Kent's devoted head. Imagine the sufiering of 
a little fellow, six years of age, looking, during the delivery of 
one of Parson Flint's sermons, for such a catastrophe ! Deacon 
Kent wore a cocked-up hat and large knee and shoe buckles, 



46 Town of CoTiasset. 

which made a deep impression upon my youthful imagination. 
It seemed to me that he was a being from another world, and 
that impression has not left me yet. More than anything else 
does the recollection of him, unless it be that of my old grand- 
mother, whom I see as a little old woman, connect me with the 
men and things of other days, and perhaps of sterner virtues. 
I could speak with reverence and affection of Parson Flint, 
whose voice I hear, and whose venerable form I see still. So I 
might notice Deacon Beals, Deacon Bourne, Hon. Elisha Doane, 
the Lincolns, the Towers, and many others whose names and in- 
fluence live and still will live. It would be most interesting to 
more fully review the past, and mention the men of other days, 
and trace their influence in the light of their deeds. Many of 
them were men of power. Strong in the truth, they were found 
setting it ever before them as a vitalizing principle. They were 
ready for their day 'and their day's demand upon them. Such 
men were Col. Thomas Lothrop, and the early ministers of the 
town, and many others within my own recollection, who pass by 
us still in their written or unwritten history. So, too, I might 
speak of the Rev. Mr. Phipps, David B. Tower and Dr. Joshua 
R. Lothrop, and those of later times, whose scholarship and 
patriotism and religion will live in their power and influence 
down through the ages : 

" Those that we loved so much and see no more, 
Loved and still love ; not dead, but gone before." 

But I must forbear. A century is gone. It has bestowed 
upon us a rich inheritance. I am happy, therefore, to mingle 
my thoughts and feelings in communion with my fellow-citizens 
on this anniversary, — this festive occasion, — and to rejoice with 
them in its scenes and associations. A century has passed, and 
has borne with it a changeless record. We cannot call it back ; 
we cannot erase from the pages of its history one thought, word 
or deed. It is well thus to think of it ; to have it unfold its 
history ; to have it come in the deep feeling of the present hour, 
and admonish, if it must, and cheer, if it may. And cheer I 
know it does, for it brings to us voices soft and soothing, full of 
pleasant memories, assuring us that we have 

" Deposited on the silent shores 
Of Memory, images and precious thoughts 
That cannot die aud cannot be effaced." 



Centennial Anniversary. 47 

My friends, I will detain you no longer. The remarks which 
I have offered, however loose or desultory their character, I hope 
will meet your indulgence as my small tribute of respect. I 
close with the sentiment : 

That, while Cohasset is grateful for the character and influ- 
ence of generations passed away, may we, her sons and daugh- 
ters, active in the duties of the present, ever remember that we 
carry about with us the most noble thing God has created — an 
intelligent spirit. Let it find in enterprises of good citizenship 
a field of action, and we may be sure it will find a field of use- 
fulness. So shall we cherish the spirit and emulate the virtues 
of our forefathers. 

Music — " Home, Sweet Home." 

Fourth regular toast : 

HiNGiiAM, — Commenced business in 1635, — Copartnership dissolved 
in 1770. 

RESPONSE OF SOLOMON LINCOLN. 

Mi'. President, — I perform a grateful service, in behalf of the 
inhabitants of Hingham, in expressing to you and to this large 
company their thanks for the cordial manner in which a senti- 
ment referring to the connection between Hingham and Co- 
hasset has been received. 

For one hundred and thirty-five years, the inhabitants of both 
towns lived under one town government. The eai'ly planters 
of both bore the same names and sprang from the same stock. 
The Orator of the Day has, with great felicity, gleaned from 
their common history many striking facts which show that they 
lived in harmony and friendship. When the Second Precinct 
of Hingham was established, November 21, 1717, comprising 
the tenitory of Cohasset, the same names were common to both 
parishes. When your first pastor was ordained, December 13, 
1721, there were gathered around him those bearing the names 
of Cushiug, Lincoln, Tower, James, Stodder, Bates, Beal and 
Nichols, all of which are recognized as among those of the old 
planters of Hingham. The pastor. Rev. Nehemiah Ilobart, 
was a grandson and a worthy I'epresentative of Rev. Peter 



48 Town of Cohasset. 

Hobart, the first pastor of Hinghara. One hundred years ago, 
the Second Precinct became a town. Until that period your 
history is our history, and it is one upon which we can look back 
with the deepest reverence for the character of the actors in 
those scenes. Thence you became our neighbors, and always 
our friends. 

Cohasset is a fair specimen of a New England town. Its 
fertile soil, its beautiful scenery, the industry, entei-prise, may I 
not add the intelligence and public spirit, of its inhabitants, 
their steady maintenance of the institutions of learning and 
religion, all make it an attractive place. 

I do not forget what this town has done for the country, nor 
the distinguished men whom it has produced. Some of them 
have been spoken of by the Orator of the Day in terms of elo- 
quent eulogy. I will mention three natives of this place, all 
educated at Harvai'd, who nobly represented the three professions 
of Law, Divinity and Medicine. 

Benjamin Pratt, of the class of 1737, rose in provincial 
times to be the leader of the Suffolk Bar, and was afterwards 
made Chief Justice of New York. He was a man of splendid 
abilities, a fine poet, an accomplished scholar and a profound 
jurist. 

Joshua Bates, who was graduated in 1800, with the highest 
honors of his class, which contained Buckminster and Allston 
and Chief Justice Shaw, was President of Middlebury College 
for a quarter of a century. He was a learned and eminent 
divine. 

Isaac Lincoln, of the same class, was for more than half a 
century an ornament of the medical profession. Residing at 
Brunswick, Maine, he was for sixty-three years an efiicient 
Overseer of Bowdoin College. His reputation was extensive 
throughout the State. He was eminently distinguished for 
l^ublic spirit and good works as a true man, to the very close of 
his patriarchal life. 

I cannot omit to allude to the brilliant career of another son 
of Cohasset, who is now in the service of his country. Leaving 
West Point bearing the highest honors of his class, he entered 
at once upon official duty as an officer of the Engineers, and 
through the Mexican war, in all the battles from Vera Cruz to 



Centennial Anniversary. 49 

the city of Mexico he rendered such valuable service as to elicit 
the warmest commendations of his superior officers and of the 
Commander-in-Chief. 

His conspicuous gallantry in various scenes in the war of the 
Rebellion crowned his career with still higher honors, which we 
trust he may long live to enjoy. 

I might speak of other distinguished sons of Cohasset among 
the living and dead, but I must forbear. 

From the old hive of the First Parish in Hingham, whose 
ancient meeting-house was erected forty years before your 
church was organized, there have sprung ten other religioias 
societies, all having places for public worship, four of which are 
within the limits of Cohasset. 

Permit me, in closing, again to express the interest which the 
inhabitants of Hingham feel in the observances of this day. 
They are here in large numbers, to show their cordial feelings of 
friendship, and to rejoice with you in the inspiring historic as- 
sociations which crowd upon the memory, and to tender to you 
their best wishes for the prosperity and happiness of all your 
citizens. 

Fifth regular toast : 

The Industry of otjr Akcestors — The foundation of their pros- 
perity aud happiness. May it ever be an object of our care and regard 
as a people. 

SPEECH OF DR. GEO. B, LORING. 

Mr. President., Ladies and Gentlemen, — I am in the habit, in 
the discharge of my duties as a private citizen of Massachusetts, 
of attending during the year, a great number of public occasions 
and ceremonies, and I assure you tliat, in the long list of them, 
I find none equal in fascination and charm and enjoyment to the 
celebrations of the anniversaries of the settlement of our 
towns. There gathers around an occasion like this a multitude 
of thoughts and associations which can be brought together on 
no other occasion known to us in this Commonwealth. It is 
our towns, sir, which have lain at the foundation of all our 
prosperity as a people, and have given forth from their hearth- 
stones those fires that have ke[)t alive the great spirit of the 
American people in their advancement within the last two hun- 
7 



50 Town of Cohasset. 

dred years. Why, here in Massachusetts, long before the great 
author of the Declai-ation of Independence conceived of the 
thought that all men were created equal, an intelligent and 
well-educated town clerk of a little town declared in open 
town meeting, by resolution, and had it recorded there, within 
the old church walls, that all men were created equal. He sent 
that declaration forth from a town in Massachusetts, to inspire 
the American people and American statesmen in that contest. 
We have heard from your distinguished Orator to-day statements 
with regard to the principles of action of the early citizens of 
this town, which ought to inspire every American citizen with 
love for hia country, and with the determination to do his duty 
in every crisis which may fall upon that country. 

But now, having passed through all those public reminis- 
cences, and being brought right down home by your own culti- 
vated son to the enjoyment of your hearthstones, — ^to Dea. 
Kent, Parson Flint, and the rest, — I am asked to deal with the 
industry of your people — that industry which gave them their 
wealth and their power, and their influence in this Common- 
wealth and throughout the world. Now, my friends, in looking 
about here to ascertain what that industry is, I find a somewhat 
hard soil, I find a boisterous ocean, and I find no streams capa- 
ble of carrying a water-wheel ; and so it seems to me, that, as 
regards the three great interests, — commerce, agriculture and 
manufactures, — Cohasset, of all places on the face of the earth, 
defied them all instead of encouraging them ; and yet, as I turn 
back, after being reminded by the Orator that the sea furnished 
its share of their wealth, that the ports of the world were con- 
tinually open to their ships, that they ransacked every sea for 
its treasures, I find that, after all, — now pardon me, my friends ; 
do not call me a maniac, — I find it was agriculture on these 
hard hills that did the business. This lay at the foundation of 
the prosperity of the people of this town, as of other portions 
of the Commonwealth. It was the " embattled farmers " who, 
as the poet says — 

" Fired the shot heard rouud the world." 

It was the patriotic farmers, who carried on their operations 
here, in spite of all obstacles, on a little ribbon of land, extend- 



Centennial Anniversary. 51 

ing from the coast of Maine down to North Carolina, mostly 
on hard soil, — it was these farmers who gave wealth and pros- 
perity to the country. Patriots during the Revolution, honest 
men in peace, they paid, during the earliest administrations, 
more than $30,000,000 of the old war debt, and paid it in 
money. (Applause.) 

That was the industry, and that was the occupation, of your 
fathers. And when the soil of Cohasset failed, — the Western 
States were unknown, the great valley of the Mohawk had been 
unexplored, the Ohio was unheard of, — it was the fertile lands 
of Cape Cod that attracted their attention. (Laughter.) It 
was the valley of the Bass, not of the Connecticut, the Mohawk 
or the Ohio, that attracted the fiirmers of this region. They 
went down to those fertile lands that may be found in Harwich 
and Ti'uro and Barnstable, and all over Cape Cod. (Laughter.) 
Tell me that the fanners of that day did not know how to 
defy obstacles ! "When they met a hard soil in one place, they 
buckled on their armor and went forth to yet harder soil in 
another place, determined to " subdue the earth," in obedience 
to the Divine injunction. It was agriculture, say what you will, 
that was the industry of yoiu* fathers. It was the tilling of the 
land that made the prosperity of the State. There \yere no 
mills here. The boys went to church in homespun ; the women 
combed the wool, twisted it into something that they called 
yam, and knit stockings; the fathers got the dyestuffs from 
the woods, and, clad in homely brown, they went forth to dis- 
charge their duties as good citizens. The only manufactories 
were in the garrets and in the kitchens. Agriculture was the 
industry by which your people grew rich, and paid their debts. 

But let me tell you, that, down at the bottom of all this, there 
was something better that they did. They left behind the rural 
homes which are not yet extinct. Those lowly houses, always 
facing to the south, as if to catch the first waim and genial 
breeze, ornamented to-day, my friends, by that old elm tree, 
standing there as a type of New England institutions. Do not 
talk to me of the palm and the olive as significant. That old 
Yankee elm, that has cast its shadow on the door-stone gener- 
ation after generation, telling of domestic virtues unequalled on 
the face of the earth, and telling, moreover, of a determination 



52 Town of Coliasset. 

to secure civil rights and privileges, without which man walks 
the earth but a slave at the bidding of a despot — that old elm 
tree — do not forget it ! And let the policy of this Common- 
mon wealth still be to cherish that industry which in earlier days 
gave to your fathers wealth and prosperity, and brought forth 
Buch solid virtues to make Massachusetts citizenship honorable 
on the face of the earth. It was this kind of agriculture on the 
land, it was this kind of citizenship in the farmer's home, that 
was made hei-e, which built up those institutions which have 
lasted until this day, and which, my friends, thank God, have 
prevailed at last through this whole land. The Puritan, the 
Old Colony man, the South Shore man, is he who in this great 
struggle has come out victorious. It is the elm tree of New 
England, the farm-house of the Old Colony. 

Now, my friends, I think this is a substantial basis to stand 
upon. I feel that, when the winds blow and the rain descends, 
and the floods come and beat upon that house, it will not fall ; 
for here, at least, it is founded upon a rock. (Laughter and ap- 
plause.) I think the industry of this section of Massachusetts 
is, at least, founded on rocks. I know, my friends, that the prin- 
ciples of this end of Massachusetts are actually, in history and 
reality, founded upon a rock, against which no storms can ever 
prevail. I am reminded by your sea-coast, by the ocean that 
beats upon it, and by that old beacon light which was alluded 
to so eloquently this morning by the Orator of the Day, of those 
lines of our American poet and satirist, one of the bright men 
of this day, who, in alluding to the power of truth, and the vain 
attempts to beat it down, says : — 

" The feeble sea-birds, blinded by the storms, 
On some tall light shall dash their little forms, 
And the rude granite scatters for their pains, 
Those small deposits that were meant for brains ; 
But the proud column, in the morning sun. 
Stands all unconscious of the mischief done ; 
Still the red beacon pours its evening rays 
On the lost traveller, with as full a blaze, 
While shines the radiance o'er the scattered fleet 
Of gulls and boobies brainless at its feet." 

Let those who attempt to assail the old-fashioned industry of 



Centennial Anniversary. 53 

the Puritans, or to assail tlie principles which the Puritan has 
planted in this land, remember the fate of those who, assailing 
the beacon light on your shore, have met a fate which is worthy 
of all the assailants of truth and justice in our land. 

I am much obliged to you for listening to me so long. I be- 
lieve in the industry of the Puritans ; I believe in their princi- 
ples. I think they will last as long as the world stands. I con- 
gratulate you that you live in an age when your inheritance, 
handed down from them, is the great law of this land, as it will 
one day become the great law of the civilized world ; for I re- 
member that the most eloquent of recent French writers has 
said, in view of the great advancement of American institutions : 
" Cfesarism, or despotism, is passing away ; Republicanism is 
taking possession of the whole civilized world." 

Music. — " Should auld acquaintance be forgot? " 

Sixth regular toast : 

The Fathers and Mothers of our Town— In the fulness of good 
old age, they rest from their labors and their works. 

SPEECH OF ARAD H. WOOD. 

3fr. President and Fellow- Citizens of both Sexes., — I rise on 
this occasion in response to your reverent allusion to the " Fath- 
ers and Mothers of the town of Cohasset, who rest from their 
labors." 

But here and now, let me thank our friend who has preceded 
me, having spared me the emotional tribute so justly and appro- 
priately paid to the earlier inhabitants of this town, whose 
works of patience, endurance and toil still remain in your midst 
as their monuments of praise, while their children's children rise 
up and call them blessed. 

I am drawn here to-day by the law of sympathetic attraction. 
All I know of life — its shines and shades — takes its beginning 
here. My memory carries me back more than a full decade into 
•the first half of the century you this day consecrate. And not- 
withstandhig our life and all its labor belongs to the ever-pres- 
ent, we are ever stealing backward among the loved memories 
of the past, and ever singing — 

" Sweet were all our fathers' festivals." 



54 Toion of CoTiasset. 

I came to see Cohasset ; but, alas ! how little remains of this 
town and the people as they exist in my memory. In these 
walls of faces before me I see fair and comely blocks wrought 
from noble quarries ; but few of the old boulders that supported 
your municipal fabric a half century ago are visible here to-day 
— here and there one, it may be. On my left I see one whose 
military title still adheres unto him, in whose company I have 
sometimes marched with measured tread and also at measured 
distance, not in defence of our country's rights, but in defiance 
of the incoming tides that invade your marshes. 

I see in the distance, passing before me, the fathers and moth- 
ers of this town, whose piety and patience, whose industry and 
perseverance, laid the foundation of your virtues, your material 
prosperity and social and political position among the towns of 
Massachusetts. They aspired worthily, and so they wrought 
worthily, and have bequeathed to their descendants excellences 
that we do well to reproduce in our lives and affections. 

The progress of a half-century has changed everything but 
the laughing slcy and the sound of the sea-lashed shore. The 
hills are not half so high, and the roads not half so long nor half 
so rough, as when I was a boy. 

" Sweet home of my boyhood ! once more I retrace 
The beauty and charms of my dear native place ; 
The roads and the hills, the fields and the streams, 
Awake to remembrance my juvenile di'eams. 

" Each object I gaze on holds with it combined 
Some early occurrence, still fresh to my mind; 
Here life's sunniest hours, and youth's brightest day, 
Glided lightly and blithesome and careless away ! 

" I remember the place where the blackberries grew, 
And ofttimes I feasted myself on them too ; 
In the clover fields watched the industrious bee, 
Or the woodpecker tapping the hollow pine tree. 

" On the banks of the brook that winds through the vale, 
I wandered in boyhood, when sprightly and hale ; 
Oft bathed in its waters, and fished on its shore, 
Oft catching a — bite, that would make me feel sore ! 

" On the east of the common, near yonder hill, 
Stood the old schoolhouse,— I remember it still; 



Centennial Anniversary. 55 

'Twas there I received my first lesson at school, 
And learned by experience a pedagogue's rule ! 

" The home of my boyhood ! my much-beloved home ! 
It clings to my memory vrherever I roam ; 
Amid all the changes that I have passed through, 
The scenes of my boyhood have gladdened my view. 

" Dear home of my boyhood ! though years have gone by, 
I love thee and prize thee, as if thou wert nigh ! 
Thy name hath a magic to none other given, — 
It links my aflPections to dear ones in heaven. 

" The home of my boyhood ! my boyhood no more ! 
Yet, if I should live to be three or four score, 
Its name shall be dear till life's latest even, 
"When may it be changed for my home up in heaven ! " 

The comforts and luxuries of your people fill me with glad- 
ness and surprise. New channels of trade have opened up new 
fields of industry, and where penury sat barefoot sorrowing, 
plenty spreads her table, and her guests are clothed in linen and 
purple. 

With the material prosperity of a people, culture and refine- 
ment are sure attendants. The educational advantages through- 
out the Commonwealth have lifted the men and women of to- 
day out of the ruts in which their fathers and mothers travelled 
during the early days of this settlement. Your zeal in the 
cause of public instruction is evinced by the commodious houses 
I see about town, dedicated to the fundamental interests of any 
people who would be free. Skilled labor and cooperation have 
lifted the burden from the weary shoulder of toil, and equalized 
the profits of industry among the people. 

No longer do I see the docile ox yoked to the thing called a 
cart, moving with its plank wheels and hubs of triple plank 
trenelled together, creaking up and down " Beech wood Lane," 
(now Beech wood Street). The wooden axletree wagons of the 
receding and passed generations, in which the aristocracy of my 
young days took their pleasure rides and Sunday-meeting air- 
ings, have, with their {u-oprietors, gone frotn our midst, and the 
places that knew them shall know them no more. 

I shall never forget the excitement that prevailed when Major 
Pratt bought " his new wagon," the first of the sort ever owned 



56 Town of Cohasset. 

in town. It was a marvel in itself; and one old lady (with a 
slight admixture of envy and solemnity, it may be,) complained 
of the unsolemn sound of its axles as the major drove by her 
dwelling on a Sunday morning. There were many other curi- 
osities of the genus carriage in town when I was sixty years 
younger than I am to-day ; but I must mention only one — an 
ancient English manufactured chaise. It was a stately vehicle, 
I assure you, as high and square as a barn. I will tell you 
where it used to stand, and for aught I know it stands there 
now ; if so, you will find it in Capt. Peter Lothrop's barnyard. 

It was in this town I gained the first rudiments of what we 
call an education ; and under the tutelage of the most popular 
teacher in town, I learned my A, B, C's. Since then I have 
visited many schools and conversed with many teachers ; but no 
" schoolmarm " yet ever filled " Miss Fanny's " place, when bal- 
ancing the sands that determined the exact point of time when 
we could have our recess. She had a pious care for the souls as 
well as the heads of her pupils. Many an earnest lesson on the- 
ology and faith has been seemingly lost on, at least, one of her 
scholars. Peace to her memoi-y ; hallowed be her name. She 
has gone to the shadowy unknown, and so has her Westmin- 
sterian creed through which she saw God and humanity and 
duty, as the sainted fathers and mothers " of ye olden times '* 
saw the sun and stars through the plumbed diamond panes, that 
admitted the light of day into the dwellings of those who could 
pay the tax on " crown glass." 

My memory is densely freighted with people and events of 
thrilling interest. The outgoing and incoming generations are 
full of significance. 

How blessed that generations are not made like houses and 
barns, with upright posts and partitions, but overlapping each 
other on so easy a plane, that the old slide off as the new crop 
out on the opposite margin, with faces radiant as sunbeams, 
while not a ripple disturbs the solid stratum that supports the 
body poUtic, vitalizing society and breathing into the children 
principles of right and duty, life and Uberty, without which man 
cannot be man. 

Mr. President, time is infinite, but patience is finite. A brief 



Centennial Anniversary. 57 

tribute to the fathers and mothers of the Beechwoods, and I 
close my remarks. 

I know pious detractors have said the Beechwoods was a be- 
nighted comer of the town, where the gospel ! had not been 
preached for one hundred and fifty years. No matter for that. 
I know the people of fifty years ago were constant attendants on 
the ministry of the Rev. Jacob Flint, who believed Avhen he said, 
" The Father is greater than I." They practised the precepts of 
Jesus with marked fidelity. The charities and kindnesses of the 
Pratts and Whitcombs, Bates's, Wheelwrights and others are 
engraved on my memory, never to be efiaced only with the 
demon-blight, ingratitude. 

Mr, President and Fellow-Citizens, I am glad to meet you 
here to-day. I feel the touch and hear the voice of the fathers 
saying to me and to you : Be true to the high interests and needs 
of manhood ; be faithful one to the other. I feel the destitution 
of age only as I neglect to harvest the harmony and sympathy 
of the living Present. 

I can think of no words more fitting to close my response 
than the following dirge : — 

" When I remember all 
The friends so linked together, 
I've seen around me fall 
Like leaves in wintry weather, 
I feel like one who treads alone 
Some banquet hall deserted ; 
Whose lights have fled. 
Whose garlands dead, 
And I alone departed." 

Rev. F. A. Reed was called upon, and said : — 

I came here, Mr. Chairman, in response to your kind invita- 
tion, to shake hands with many of my old friends, to eat a good 
dinner, and not to make a speech. But thinking that I might 
possibly get into a corner, I prepared a toast, which I will read, 
with a few lines that I wrote to accompany it : — 

The Adopted Sons of Cohasset wno are Absent — Change of 
place has not impaired their afl"ectiou for the old home, 

8 



58 Town of Coliasset. 

One-fifth of the Centennial, 

Mine, save a year and more, 
Comes stealing o'er me at the call 

To visit the South Shore. 

The past re-lives — its hopes, its fears. 
Of youth and manhood's prime, 

Wake me to laughter and to tears. 
Like a sad and merry chime. 

And each familiar face, I ween. 

That at this board appears, 
Is linked with something fresh and green. 

In those eventful years. 

Cohasset ! I can not forget 

The scenes I lived among; 
The ocean's grand old anthem yet 

In memory's ear is sung. 

With change of place, the heart's the same, 

New friends are not the old ; 
A country flat, insipid, tame. 

Is not the sea-coast bold. 

" Taunton Great River," at my door. 

Is not the boist'rous deep 
That used to fill night with its roar, 

And drive away my sleep. 

The fact'ry bell, the smoke that fills 
The throat, when it is breezy. 

Does not invade the sense where wills 
Each one to take life easy. 

And yet there is affinity 
'Twixt here and where I dwell ; 

There fills all the proximity 
" An ancient, fish-like smell." 

Herrings have come ! 'Twas told in meeting ! 

Our tars are doing well ; 
And to their fellow-tars send greeting — 

" How fare the mackerel ? " 

We eat the herrings, bones and all, 

Oue for a whole meal stands ; 
Our fishers, having made their haul, 

Through me with yours shake hands. 



Centennial Anniversary. 59 

Wc bought our town for a peck of beans— 

For so tradition has it ; 
In olden time, did no more means 

Avail to buy Cohasset? 



POEM. 

BY REV. GEORGE OSGOOD. 

The child, who tracked Cohasset's sand 

One hundred years ago. 
May sleep in some far distant land, 
Or in the deep, whose billows grand, 

Above him ceaseless flow; 
Or rest in yonder slope of green, 
Where sweet and tender flowers are seen, 

And friends may come and go. 

The same wild scenes around us lie, 
That met of yore his kindling eye. 
Though cultured grounds and villas fair 
Adorn the landscape everywhere. 
Yes, here, like him, we still may find 
The wild aud beautiful combined. 

The lovely and the grand. 
"Whether through woodlaud paths we stray, 
Or sit where ocean surges play 
In broken wreaths of foam aud spray, 
Around the ancient rocks of gray 

That line our rugged strand. 
Like him, from headland bold, we view 
The wide expanse of waters blue. 

Or on the beaches stroll. 
And listeu to the solemn roar, 
As on the smooth and .shining shore 

The billows break aud roll. 
When sunset sheds its sweetest smile 
On wave and shore, on rock and isle, 

On lake and winding stream, 
We love on yonder hills to stray. 
And watch the twilight fade away, 
Till shines from Minot's tower of gray 

The lamp's resplendent beam. 
We, on a summer eve serene, 
May find a lovely moonlight scene 

While sitting on the clitf; 
And think of those, who, years ago, 



60 Town of Cohasset 

Beheld the breakers dash and flow 

Around the fisher's skiff. 
The child who climbed from crag to crag 

A hundred years ago, 
Beheld the folds of England's flag 

From many a war-ship flow. 
Then, as he saw the royal fleet 

Sail by Nantasket shore, 
With joy and pride he loved to greet 

The ensign that it bore. 

But ah ! the child too fondly dreamed 
The fleet and flag that friendly seemed 

Would always guard his home ; 
Nor feared the tyrant's boasted power 
Would, in some dark and evil hour, 

In woe and vengeance come. 

And soon, his earnest heart was stirred 
By many a true and fearless word 

From those who led the age ; 
He heai'd the statesman's strong appeal, 
Beheld the hero's force and zeal, 

And watched the gifted sage. 
When Franklin, with unerring eye, 
Could see the gathering tempest nigh, 

And gave his warning clear ; 
When Henry, 'gainst the tyrant's throne. 
Spoke with that true inspiring tone 

That knew no doubt nor fear ; 
When Otis fired the patriot's zeal 
With many a true and bold appeal, 

And urged the freeman's right ; 
When Lincoln drew his trusty sword. 
To show by deed as well as word 

He for the cause would fight ; 
The boy that tracked Cohasset's sand 
Then bravely joined the noble band 
Which rose to save his native land 

In danger's dai'kest hour ; 
And through war's long and dreadful storm. 
His faithful heart beat true and warm 

For fi'eedom's blessed power. 
When overboard they thi-ew the tea,* 
What patriot had more pluck than he ? 
When came the news from Lexington, 

* Major James Stoddard. 



Centennial Anniversary. 61 

Who Tvas more glad to grasp his gun,* 
And show on famous Bunker Hill 
He could defy the tyrant's will ? 
When Lincoln from the English lord 
At Yorktown took the yielded sword, 
And shouts of joy and triumph rose, 
He gladly hailed the contest's close, 
And saw with pride his country's foes, 

Defeated, pass away ; 
And to his home of peace returned. 
For which his heart had fondly yearned 

Through many a weary day. 

Years passed away — and yet again, 
England, the mistress of the main. 

Despised our nation's power ; 
And then Cohasset's sons arose 
And met on sea and land her foes. 

In many a battle-hour. 
Here some may yet remember still, 
How oft they saw from rock and hill 

The hostile ships pass by ; 
While to the battle's fearful roar. 
In echoes from our rocky shore, 

Came back a sad reply. 

The war soon closed, and peace again 
Brought hope and joy to earth and main. 
Then might the fisher safely guide 
His bark along the trackless tide ; 
Then might the earth her treasures yield 
To him who tilled the fertile field. 
And the mechanic's skilful hand 
Enrich and bless the prosperous land ; 
Then steam outstripped the changeful sail, 
Or sent her trains along* the rail. 
While lightning, trained by human skill. 
Sent forth the words that cheer and thrill 

To those of every clime. 
And through the dark, unfiithomcd deep. 
Through deserts drear and mountains steep. 

Outrun the steps of time ! 
Thus has our hard and rocky strand 
Joyed in the progress of tlie land ; 
And in the patriot's spirit shown 
The nation's weal to be her own ! 

* Joseph Bates. 



62 Town of Cohasset. 

When slavery's minions sought to tear 
From Sumter's walls our banners fair, 

And blast the nation's power, 
The boys who tracked Cohasset's sand 
Uprose, a brave and uol)le band. 

And met the fearful hour. 
Then, after fights on land and main, 
After the loss of comrades slain. 

Or starved in prisons vile ; 
After sad years in suffering spent. 
They saw upon a land unreut 

The sun of Freedom smile. 

The freedman now may blithely rest, 
Or revel* in the ti-aitor's nest, 

And show a nobler life. 
Than those Avho deemed it high renown 
To crush the poor and feeble down 

Through years of bloody strife. 

Now, through this happy land of ours. 
From where unfold the tropic flowers 

To wild Alaska's snows ; 
From the right arm that guards our State, 
Far westward to the Golden Gate, 

The air of freedom blows ! 

* Hon. Hiram Kevels, the successor of Jefferson Davis, was present at the celebration. 



Centennial Anniversary. 63 



The following letters were received from invited guests 
unable to be present : — 

[Letter from Hon. C. F. Adams.] 
Mr. Adams feels himself much flattered by the polite invitation to 
the Centennial Celebration at Cohasset, and regrets that his arrange- 
ments will not permit his acceptance of it. He begs to assure the Com- 
mittee of his interest and sympathy in cherishing such anniversaries. 

59 Mt. Vernox St., Boston, ) 
30 April, 1870. ) 



Boston, May 6, 1870. 
A. H. Tower, Jr., Secretary of Committee of Arrangements : 

My Dear Sir, — I have to acknowledge the receipt of your invitation 
to be present at the celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of 
the establishment of the town of Cohasset. I have delayed an answer 
till the last moment, in the hope that I might be able, consistently with 
my official duties, to be present ; but I am compelled to forego the 
pleasure which I had promised myself. 

No town in Massachusetts bears such a place in my affections as Co- 
hasset, for it was the birthplace of ray most cherished friend. I should 
be glad of an opportunity, if it should be offered me, to expi'ess my 
feelings in regard to him who was endeared to me by the closest friend- 
ship. Dr. Joshua Rich Lothrop was my classmate in college — my inti- 
mate and beloved friend. For many years we saw each other almost 
daily, and our studies, our reading and our pleasui'es were the same. 
Both limited in our pecuniary resources, we almost shai'ed a common 
purse. As he grew in distinction in his chosen profession, our locali- 
ties separated, but not our affection or esteem. 

I should like to speak of him as an honor to his native town, of his 
modesty, of his learning in letters, of his thorough mastery of his pro- 
fession, of his success in I'eaching the highest reputation, of the depth 
of attachment felt for him by the friends who surrounded him in his 
new home, and of the grief which wrung their hearts when the good 
physician was called away. 

What treasures has a town like the character and reputation of such 
a man? 

Could I present liim as I knew him, I believe his acquaintances, who 
perhaps knew liim less intimately than I did, would feel a greater pride 
both in their townsman and their town. 

I am, respectfully, yours, very truly, 

Harvey Jewell. 



64 Town of Cohasset. 

Boston, May 6, 1870. 
J. Q. A. LoTHROP, Esq.: 

Deak Sm, — I find my engagements will prevent my being with you 
to-morrow. I regret very much that I cannot participate in your in- 
teresting celebration, but it is quite out of my power. I trust you will 
be able to find some person who will gladly take the part which you 
had intended for me. Indeed, all who may be assembled will respond 
to any sentiment complimenting President Grant. 

I am, yours truly, 

B. W. Hakris. 



Boston, May 5, 1870. 

My Dear Sir, — I am deeply sensible of the honor conferred jby your 
invitation to attend the Cohasset Centennial Anniversary. Most gladly 
would I be associated with you on this occasion, but the afflictive dis- 
pensations of Providence in my family of late render it improper for 
me to join in public demonstrations of joy. 

This anniversary will be full of pleasure to every one who feels an 
interest in our glorious old Commonwealth, bringing the mind to reflect 
upon the traditions and reminiscences which have made your noble Co- 
hasset the home and birthplace of many who have contributed largely 
not only to the advancement of the commerce and honor of Massachu- 
setts, but the whole country. Your section of the State has furnished 
many precious jewels that have adorned the coronet of our Common- 
wealth — many who are now living, and I have no doubt will be present 
at your celebration, and by recounting the fame and influence of your 
good old town and vicinity, place on record an example which may be 
transmitted to future generations for great benefit. Although I cannot 
be with you, I trust you will believe that, in these days of spirits, al- 
though the body may be absent, the spirit of your humble servant will 
rejoice in the occasion. 

"With personal regards to yourself and your committee, 
I am, most sincerely yours, &c., 

Marshall P. Wilder. 
J. Q. A. LoTHROP, Chairman Com., &c., <fec., &g. 



QuiNcy, April 30, 1870. 
Hon. J. Q. A. LoTHROP : 

De.vr Sir, — I have delayed an answer to the kind invitation of the 
Committee to attend the centennial celebration of the incorporation of 
your town, in the hope that I might so arrange my business engage- 
ments as to enable me to attend ; but I find myself reluctantly con- 
strained to deny myself the gratification. 

Respectfully yours, 

J. Q. Adams. 



Centennial Anniversary. QB 

30 CoTTET Street, Boston, ) 
May 4, 1870. 5 

Dear Sir : — I beg to thank you for your invitation to the Centennial 
Celebration, but my engagements here are imperative, and will prevent 
my having the pleasure of attending. 

I am, very respectfully yours, 

Charles Allen. 
J. Q. A. Lothrop, Esq. 



COMMONWEjU-TH of MASSACHUSETTS. 

Auditor's Department, 
Boston, May 6, 1870. 
J. Q. A. Lothrop, Esq. : 

My De.vr Sir, — I regret to say that I shall be unable to be with you 
to-morrow, in consequence of sickness in my family. 
Many thanks for your kind remembrance of me. 

Truly, 

Chas. Endicott. 



cojimonwealth of massachusetts. 

Senate Chamber, Boston, 

May 6, 1870. 

My Dear Sir : — Until this afternoon I had supposed I should be per- 
mitted to enjoy the pleasure of participating with the citizens of Co- 
hasset in their Centennial Celebration to-morrow, but I find that im- 
portant duties at the State House will prevent. 

Thanking you for the honor, and trusting that the occasion may be 
one of unalloyed enjoyment and pleasure;, and deeply regretting the cir- 
cumstances which prevent my being present, 
I remain, very truly yours, 

F. A. HOBART. 

J. Q. A. Lothrop, Esq., Chairman, &c. 



COHASSET, May 30, 1870. 
De.vr Sir : — By request I send you the following : The " whipping- 
post and the stocks stood on Main Street, nearly opposite the entrance 
of Winter Street," where persons convicted of crime under his majesty's 
laws received a certain number of lashes at the whipping-post, and 
then were fastened into the stocks, to remain there a certain length of 
time, according to the degree and aggravation of the crime. 
Respectfully yours, &c., &c., 

Marshall Pratt. 



66 Town of Coliasset. 

New Yokk, April 2, 1870. 
Dear Sir : — Permit me, in acknowledging the receipt of your letter 
of March 31st, to thank the Committee for their courtesy in inviting 
me to act as chief marshal of ceremonies at the Centennial Celebration 
to take place in Cohasset May 7th. The occasion wUl be one of much 
interest to its people, and especially so to those whose ancestors have 
been associated with its settlement, its incorporation and its growth. 
It would give me much pleasure to witness the ceremonies of the cele- 
bration, but there is no certainty that I shall be able to do so ; and I 
must, therefore, beg you to present my thanks to the Committee of Ar- 
rangements for their complimentary invitation, with my regrets that I 
shall not be able to comply with their wishes. 

Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

Z. B. Tower. . 
A. H. Tower, Jr., Sec. Com. of Arranr/ts, Cohasset, Mass. V 



Boston, May 6, 1870. 
A. H. Tower, Jr., Esq., Secretary : 

Dear Sir, — Your very kind invitation for to-morrow's celebratioit 
was duly received. A previous engagement for that day will unavoid- 
ably prevent my being with you on that occasion. I had hoped, until 
this moment, to have postponed my other engagement, but 'tis impos- 
sible. 

Thanking you for your invitation, and regretting, much more than, 
you can, my inability to accept it, I am, 

Yours, very truly, 

Chas. Adams, 3i\ 

Boston, May 6, 1870. 
Mr. Tower : 

Dear Sir, — I sincerely regret that I am obliged to decline the honor 
of your invitation for to-morrow, but I find myself so placed that I 
cannot come. 

Kespectfully yours, 

H. L. Cargux. 



Centennial Anniversary. 



67 



Jfuster-HoU of Capt. Job Cushing's Comjmny, in the 36</i 
Regiment of Foot Infantry^ Continental Army, encamped in 
Fort No. 2, October 5, 1775. 







Engaged. 




Engaged. 


Job Gushing, Capt., . 


. May 16 


John Kilby, Jr., 


May 16 


Natli. Nichols, 1st Lieut. 


, " 16 


Galen Lincoln, 


. « 16 


Josiah Oakes, 2d Lieut., 


" 16 


Jerome Lincoln, 


« 16 


Eleazer James, Sergt., 


" 18 


Charles Luueand, . 


" 17 


Gideon Howard, Sergt., 


. June 1 


Joseph Neal, . 


« 25 


Isaac BuiT, Sergt., . 


. May 16 


Caleb Nichols, . 


" 16 


Peter Nichols, Sergt., 


" 16 


Daniel Nichols, 


. June 1 


Abraham Tower, Corp., 


" 22 


Ebenezer Orcutt, 


. May 17 


Adua Bates, Corp., . 


" 22 


Ephraim Orcutt, 


" 16 


James Bates, Corp., 


". 22 


Luke Orcutt, . 


" 27 


Bela Nichols, Corp., 


" 22 


Haugh Oakes, . 


« 16 


Levi Tower, Drummer, 


. " 18 


Joshua Oakes, . 


'■' 16 


William Stoddard, Fifer 


" 17 


Samuel Oakes, . 


. " IG 


Elisha Bates, . 


" 22 


Caleb Pratt, . 


« 18 


Jonathan Bates, 




" 22 


Oliver Prichard, 


« 18 


Jo>i'-' Bates, . 




. " 23 


Richard Prichard, . 


" 16 


JUS Bates, 




" 16 


Elisha Stephenson, . 


June 1 


^jhraim Battles, 




. " 16 


Luke Stephenson, . 


May 16 


Jared Battles, . 




" 16 


John Sutton, . 


« 25 


Joshua Beal, . 




. June 1 


Joseph Souther, 


" 24 


Sam'l Beal, 




. May 23 


James Stoddard, 


" 17 


Amos Brown, . 




" 16 


Benj. Stutson, . 


" 23 


Calvin Cushing, 




" 22 


Reuben Thorn, 


" 16 


Obed Dunbar, . 




" 23 


Jesse Tower, . 


" 24 


George Humphrey, 




" 16 


Isaac Tower, . 


" 16 


Benj. Jacobs, . 




" 16 


Jesse Worrich, 


" 23 


Jared Joy, 




" 16 


John Whitcom, 


" 23 


Melzer Joy, 




« 20 


Gershom AVheelwright, 


" 16 


John Kilby, 




" 16 


Benj. "Woodward, . 


" 16 


Richard Kilby, . 




" 16 







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